There is a subtle danger in a man thinking that he is "fixed" for life. It indicates that the next jolt of the wheel of progress is going to fling him off.

This is how civilizations decline. They quit taking risks. And when they quit taking risks, arteries harden. Every year, there are more referees and fewer doers. When you've had success for too long, you lose the desire to take risks.

Inactivity is death.

Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it.

Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.

In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and ageing, of a Europe which is now a 'grandmother', no longer fertile and vibrant.