Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.

A book is made better by good readers and clearer by good opponents.

The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals.

The way to transmute your iron duty into gold in everyone's eyes is this: always deliver more than you promise.

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.

Enduring habits I hate.... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits.

...throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.