No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year -- ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge -- and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.

One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.

I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christians look a little more redeemed.

Those with certain temperaments find no way to endure themselves except by striving towards going under.

The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her in refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising.

if a person wishes to achieve peace of mind and happiness then they should acquire faith, but if they want to be a disciple of truth, which can be "frightening and ugly,” then they need to search.

I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.