True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.

I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —

There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.

So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.

Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.