"The Holy Ghost," Luther instructs us, "is not a skeptic." Not everyone can be, and that is really too bad.

I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity.

A people represents not so much an aggregate of ideas and theories as of obsessions.

In the hours without sleep, each moment is so full and so vacant that it suggests itself as a rival of Time.

Everything turns on pain; the rest is accessory, even nonexistent, for we remember only what hurts. Painful sensations being the only real ones, it is virtually useless to experience others.

There is no limit to suffering.

Democracy: a festival of mediocrity.