So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.

We cannot know the young child's personality by studying his systems of interest, for his attention is as yet too labile, his reactions impulsive, and interests unformed. From adolescence onward, however, the surest clue to personality is the hierarchy of interests, including the loves and loyalties of adult life.

Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.

Mature striving is linked to long-range goals. Thus, the process of becoming is largely a matter of organizing transitory impulses into a pattern of striving and interest in which the element of self-awareness plays a large part.

Scarcely anyone ever wants to be anybody else. However handicapped or unhappy he feels himself, he would not change places with other more fortunate mortals.

A prejudice, unlike a simple misconception, is actively resistant to all evidence that would unseat it.