God has such gladness every time he sees from heaven that a sinner is praying to Him with all his heart, as a mother has when she sees the first smile on her baby's face.

He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly.

I sometimes think love consists precisely of the voluntary gift by the loved object of the right to tyrannize over it.

If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's human, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive.

Thus, as a result of heightened consciousness, a man feels as if it's all right if he's bad as long as he knows it- as though that were any consolation.

Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!

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.