"When the earth is sick and polluted, human health is impossible.... To heal ourselves we must heal our planet, and to heal our planet we must heal ourselves."

“People say you make your best work when in despair, but I think happiness is a good place to write from”

Source : Interview with Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2012.

“Aside from rabid Islamists, no one who wishes to be taken seriously can publicly say anything bad about the old Jews of Europe without sounding like reactionary troglodytes.”

“Wherever it is resisted, slaver dies away and freedom grows.”

“The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction.”

“According to Democritus, truth lies at the bottom of a well, the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard, however, that some philosophers, in seeking for truth, to pay homage to her, have seen their own image and adored it instead.”

“The history of the human race is the history of ordinary people who have overcome their fears and accomplished extraordinary things.”

“Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new ethics.”

Source : Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.159, tredition

“The more usual reason for adopting a strategy of limited aim is that of awaiting a change in the balance of force ... The essential condition of such a strategy is that the drain on him should be disproportionately greater than on oneself.”