“Man’s main task is to give birth to himself.”

“I believe the main task of the spirit is to free man from his ego.”

“An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life—becoming a better person.”

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

“Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing. That is, if the one giving the example is not saying to himself, 'Behold I am giving an example.' That spoils it. Anyone thinking of the example he will give to others has lost his simplicity. Only as a man has simplicity can his example influence others.”

“For life makes no mistakes and always gives man that which man first gives himself.”

“I only wish to have the principle recognized that no man liveth to himself; that no man's business is his business alone; that all business is stewardship; that there is no law of life but Christ's law; that the main question for every man is not how much he can get, but how much he can give.”

“My main task is to enlighten the spirits and put all the dogmas to death.”

“The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.”

“Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-haired child.”