Rationalizing is not a tool for penetration of reality but a post-factum attempt to harmonize one's own wishes with existing reality. - Erich Fromm

The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are too selfish, but that they do not love themselves.

I cannot know who I am, because I don't know which part of me is not me.

Without effort and willingness to experience pain and anxiety, nobody grows, in fact nobody achieves anything worth achieving.