Occasionally I find a travel book that is both illuminating and entertaining where vivid writing and research replace self-indulgence and sloppy prose.

I think it's almost an indulgence to focus on the dark side of things. And as you get older you want to focus on the positive.

The romanticised life where all the great poetry and music and art of the world comes from is great but it requires a lot of self-indulgence.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life and that happiness not pain or mindless self-indulgence is the proof of your moral integrity since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

The famous saying 'God is love' it is generally assumed means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.

Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers vain indulgences and unnecessary cares.

The best way to win against the intolerable is to tolerate them for this they have seldom dealt with. Your indulgence may soften their malice and open their eyes to more honorable ways.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case it is usually at the expense of others. In other words it is the opposite of idealism.

Love turns with a little indulgence to indifference or disgust hatred alone is immortal.

Study is the bane of childhood the oil of youth the indulgence of adulthood and a restorative in old age.