Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.

He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.

I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness — a real thorough-going illness.

To think too much is a disease.

Beauty would save the world.