All men lead their lives behind a wall of misunderstanding they have themselves built and most men die in silence and unnoticed behind the walls. Now and then a man, cut off from his fellows by the peculiarities of his nature, becomes absorbed in doing something that is personal, useful and beautiful. Word of his activities is carried over the walls.

So long as men firmly believe that everything is fixed for them, so long is progress impossible.

a man does not really begin to be alive until he has lost himself, until he has released the anxious grasp which he normally holds upon his life, his property, his reputation and position.

No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed . . . in the midst of men who suffer.

A man can't ride your back unless it's bent

When your back is against the wall, there's only one way to go and that's forward.

Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.

Man must first live before he can live abundantly.

Man cannot sprout wings unless he has first reached the brink of the abyss!

Most men never discover what they've got inside. A man has to face up to trouble before he knows.

The education of a man is never completed until he dies.

Men, I think, are not capable of doing nothing, of saying nothing, of not reacting to injustice, of not protesting against oppression, of not striving for the good of society and the good life in the ways they see it.

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.

A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is no longer indispensable.