Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.

Surely people should eventually cease to be surprised at anything? And yet they continue to be.

You took my freedom away a long time ago and you can't give it back because you haven't got it yourself.

Nowadays we don't think much of a man's love for an animal; we laugh at people who are attached to cats. But if we stop loving animals, aren't we bound to stop loving humans too?

... We brush aside all scales not our own, as if they were follies or delusions.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed.