Then I feel so happy and at the same time so sad, it's unimaginable.

I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.

I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.

Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.

This man, who for twenty-five years has been reading and writing about art, and in all that time has never understood anything about art, has for twenty-five years been hashing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that nonsense; for twenty-five years he has been reading and writing about what intelligent people already know and about what stupid people don't want to know--which means that for twenty-five years he's been taking nothing and making nothing out of it. And with it all, what conceit! What pretension!

It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.