“One sign of a good action is that in retrospect it appears inevitable.”

“It is a peculiarity of time that in retrospect it appears so compact, an indivisible solid object, a dish with only one smell and one flavor.”

“Those who can reach your heart, inevitably leave the sign.”

“I am not good at noticing when I'm happy, except in retrospect.”

“By nature servile, people attempt at first glance to find signs of good breeding in the appearance of those who occupy more exalted stations.”

“All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.”

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.”

“Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.”

“Action will happen in its own time. Action taken on strength of feelings inevitably leads to more feelings to correct the action previously taken - and so the feelings of discontent and conflict, and corrective actions go on and on repeating themselves.”