If only it were possible to love without injury - fidelity isn't enough... The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation.

• having
• love
• pride
• suffering
• body

I know myself and I know the depth of my selfishness. I cannot be at ease (and to be at ease is my chief wish) if someone else is in pain, visibly or audibly or tactually. Sometimes this is mistaken by the innocent for unselfishness, when all I am doing is sacrificing a small good - in this case postponement in attending to my hurt - for the sake of a far greater good, a peace of mind when I need think only of myself.

• selfishness
• ulterior motives
• peace

Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

• innocence
• meaning

Time has its revenges, but revenges seem so often sour. Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God - a being capable of understanding.

• god
• revenge
• solipsism
• time
• understanding
• will

I could never have been a pacifist. To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit.

• death
• pacifism