To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

I am not a big fan of positive thinking. The term suggests that there is something negative that you have to counteract by being positive. That is an artificial duality.

Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.

It is crucial to maintain the political equality among the member states, which is fundamental to the community. At the same time we have to counteract the natural tendencies to create a hierarchy inside the E.U.

Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them. Maybe I wanted to find more rigorous ways of thinking. We're talking now about the earliest writing I did and about the power of language to counteract the wallow of late adolescence, to define things, define muddled experience in economical ways. Let's not forget that writing is convenient. It requires the simplest tools. A young writer sees that with words and sentences on a piece of paper that costs less than a penny he can place himself more clearly in the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.

Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.