He's right: They have to put madmen with madmen.

Are there not some places where we seem to breathe sadness? — why, we cannot tell. It is a chain of recollections — an idea which carries you back to other times, to other places — which, very likely, have no connection with the present time and place.

The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.

Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.

What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" "Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude... I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.