Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstance, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave.

Every decent man of our age must be a coward and a slave. That is his normal condition. Of that I am firmly persuaded. He is made and constructed to that very end. And not only at the present time owing to some casual circumstance, but always, at all times, a decent man is bound to be a coward and a slave.

But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas.

It is always so, when we are unhappy we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; our feeling is not shattered, but becomes concentrated.

Therefore, in my incontrovertible capacity as plaintiff and defendant judge and accused, I condemn this nature, which has so brazenly and unceremoniously inflicted this suffering... since I am unable to destroy Nature, I am destroying myself, solely out of weariness of having to endure a tyranny in which there is no guilty party.