When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

Sorrow compressed my heart, and I felt I would die, and then... Well, then I woke up.

It is a law of nature that every decent man on earth is bound to be a coward and a slave

Let us not forget that the reasons for human actions are usually incalculably more complex and diverse than we tend to explain them later, and are seldom clearly manifest.

Truly great men must, I think, experience great sorrow on the earth.

My friends, God is necessary for me if only because he is the one being who can be loved eternally.