So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time.

... I suppose that it is not so easy to go home and it takes a bit of time to make a son out of a stranger.

Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves.

By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.

Morality, when formal, devours.

Humans are creatures, who spent their lifes trying to convince themselves, that their existence is not absurd