I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business.
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extrordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die.
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.
If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.