But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.

But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness.

For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.

We do not understand that life is paradise, for it suffices only to wish to understand it, and at once paradise will appear in front of us in its beauty.