“As a manager you're paid to be uncomfortable. If you're comfortable, it's a sure sign you're doing things wrong.”

“All earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.”

“Once a year ask the boss, "What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?" and "What do I or my people do that hampers you?"”

“An employer has no business with a man's personality... The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform.”

“Most innovators are successful to the extent to which they define risks and confine them.”

“At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.”

“Lovers should guard their strangeness. If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness.”

“They say there is a doorway from heart to heart, but what is the use of a door when there are no walls?”