...one may say anything about the history of the world - anything that might enter the most disordered imagination. The only thing one can't say is that it's rational.

One could never judge a man without seeing him close, for oneself.

Coming at twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offense, met him at first with distrust and sullenness.

I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish.

Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us.

You’re a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that’s no occupation for a gentleman.

Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.