Love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance.

At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowe-four thousand gulden-and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me.

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment-as well as the prison.

It is man's unique privilege, among all other organisms. By pursuing falsehood you will arrive at the truth!

Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends.

One's own free and unfettered volition, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, inflamed sometimes to the point of madness - that is the one best and greatest good, which is never taken into consideration because it cannot fit into any classification and the omission of which sends all systems and theories to the devil.

Whatever distinguishes one lump of flesh from another when we're alive, we're all the same once we're dead. Just used-up shells.