Lessons of a century of life

In order for a person to enjoy a good old age, he must preserve the curiosity of childhood, the aspirations of youth, and the responsibilities of adulthood, and he must try, during his old age, to extract the experience of previous ages. I will never cease to notice what is harsh, stubborn, and merciless in humanity, nor what is terrifying in life, nor am I sufficiently attentive to what is noble, generous, and kind in humanity, nor to what life contains of fascinating and astonishing matters. We are often forced to face the following ethical contradiction: respecting every human being and not insulting him in what is sacred to him, and at the same time practicing a critical spirit driven by disrespect for imposed beliefs as sacred beliefs. Self-criticism is a fundamental psychological protection. We should not be realistic in a trivial sense (adapting to the immediate), nor unreasonably realistic (escaping the constraints of reality), but we should be realistically complex: meaning that we recognize the uncertainty surrounding reality, and that we know there is still an unseen possibility. Art that attributes to others words they never said, ideas they never thought of, and diminishes the value of a person in the most vile ways, I say: this art has reached its peak.