If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.

Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. –The Grand Inquisitor

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

In such situations, of course, people don't nurse their anger silently, they moan aloud; but these are not frank, straightforward moans, there is a kind of cunning malice in them, and that's the whole point. Those very moans express the sufferer's delectation; if he did not enjoy his moans, he wouldn't be moaning.

He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.

Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.