Belief is itself the true God-announcing miracle.

Belief is to be rejected: no one opinion is any more probable or likely than another.

Belief is a kind of trap, because if you belief something you are forever precluded from believing its opposite.

Belief is custom — many convictions are family hand-me-downs.

Culture is that which, for the average person, appears to be remote, hovers over, and humiliates him.

Culture is that upon whose reflection we obtain a larger reservoir of ways of knowing.

Culture is tasked, as its primary function, to harness and control energy.

A Culture is not a scientific object. It is produced historically and is actively contested.

Habit is the invisible architecture of daily life.

Habit is that into which uncertainty disappears.

Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.

Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit.

Influence is inherent in everything — Every book is a quotation, and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries, and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Influence is important to character — Amongst the honorable a man becomes honorable ; amongst the base, base.

Influence is most successful when grounded in kindness — you cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.

Influence is a kind of immortality — a man lives as long as there are those who bear the stamp of his influence.