Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

I can’t think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there’s no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.

The fact that there is nothing but a spiritual world deprives us of hope and gives us certainty.

All language is but a poor translation.

I’m doing badly, I’m doing well; whichever you prefer.

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.

This perversion of the truth, familiar to the artist though it was, always unnerved him afresh and proved too much for him. What was a consequence of the premature ending of his fast was here presented as the cause of it! To fight against this lack of understanding, against a whole world of nonunderstanding, was impossible.