Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?

I no longer know If I wish to drown myself in love, vodka or the sea.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man.