Each stage of development, remember, has a dialectic of progress--in plain language, every new development is good news, bad news.
To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything.
Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.
Why would a person prefer the accusations of guilt, unworthiness, ineptitude - even dishonor and betrayal- to real possibility? This may not seem to be the choice, but it is: complete self effacement, surrender to the "others", disavowal of any personal dignity and freedom-on the one hand; and freedom and independence, movement away from the others, extrication of oneself from the binding links of family and social duties-on the other hand. This is the choice that the depressed person actually faces.
Love is the problem of an animal.
What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms.
If the love object is divine perfection, then one's own self is elevated by joining one's destiny to it. . . All our guilt, fear, and even our mortality itself can be purged in a perfect consummation with perfection itself.
Every day is not just another assignment; it is a small, but contained voyage of discovery.
Great minds have always seen it. That is why man has survived his journey this long. When we fail to wish any longer to be otherwise than what we are, we will have ceased to evolve. Evolution has to be lived forward. I say this as one who has stood above the bones of much that has vanished, and at midnight has examined his own face.
First of all, never buy a man a plasma TV until you're married. A lot of men once they have a plasma TV they don't need a girlfriend
Ultimately, theatre takes place in the minds of the audience: they all imagine the same thing at the same time.