“Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.”

“Foresight is an imperfect thing — all prevision in economics is imperfect.”

“We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.”

“It's the imperfections that make things beautiful”

“Spangling the wave with lights as vain
As pleasures in the vale of pain,
That dazzle as they fade.”

“Emperors are vain and useless things.”

“It is the profoundest of cosmic ironies. The divine power, our true spiritual essence, does not achieve perfection until it hits the ‘rock’ bottom of the cosmos – the dense and crude earth. It remains imperfect until the moment of entombment for the simple reason that until that dark nadir is reached the experiential adventure of existence remains incomplete, and Self is not yet endowed with the entire spectrum of the light of consciousness – from spirit to matter – from the highest high to the lowest low.”

“The people who fear humour — and they are many — are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.”

“The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.”

“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”