Man never knows what he wants; he aspires to penetrate mysteries and as soon as he has, he wants to reestablish them. Ignorance irritates him and knowledge cloys. – Amiel, Journal, 1884
You will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential, my young friend. – Michael Piller and Michael Wagner, Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Evolution,”
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention — on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God — that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. – W. H. Auden