“It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.”

“Desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual ideal of hell and its horror.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

“A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, in desiring attaining himself, helps others to attain.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Salvation can be attained only through pure and unsullied love of God (combined with knowledge of His greatness).”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

“Though man comes from the dust, sin is not a part of his nature. Man can overcome sin, and through repentance attain to at-one-ment with his Maker.”

Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946) British rabbi

“Thus the universe is to be conceived as attaining the active self-expression of its own variety of opposites of its own freedom and its own necessity, of its own multiplicity and its own unity, of its own imperfection and its own perfection. All the opposites are elements in the nature of things, and are incorrigibly there. The concept of God is the way in which we understand this incredible fact that what cannot be, yet is.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

“A goal can only be reached if the means are in consonance with its essential nature. One will never attain non-violence through violence.”

Gustav Landauer (1870–1919) German anarchist

“A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

“Everything measurable passes, everything that can be counted has an end. Only three things are infinite: the sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet