The best books are those that tell you what you already know, but didn’t know that you knew.

And so, the best education consists not in being taught but in being inspired; and if I could, I would rather inspire a single person than teach a thousand.

Many people are unable to let their minds wander off the beaten path for fear of the monsters that may be lurking in the undergrowth. If you meet a monster, take the chance to say ‘hello’.

Offence exists not in the insult or the insulter but in our reaction to them, and our reactions are completely within our control. It is unreasonable to expect a boor to be anything but a boor; if we take offence at his bad behaviour, we have only ourselves to blame.

Existential anxiety is so disturbing that most people avoid it at all costs, constructing a false reality out of goals, aspirations, habits, customs, values, culture, and religion in a bid to deceive themselves that their lives are special and meaningful and that death is distant or delusory.

A genius is no more – and no less – than someone who insists on the truth, while others face the other way.

Paradoxically, perhaps, the better company you are, the less company you need.

It takes ten good decisions to make up for one disastrous one. This is why it is better not to make nine good decisions than to make one bad one – which is what happens most of the time.

If reasoning is a set of deductions, then tact consists in omitting the workings.

Evil is stupidity with intent.