Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.

Although your mind works, your heart is darkened with depravity; and without a pure heart there can be no complete and true consciousness

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.

Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.

They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.

I wanted to discuss the suffering of humanity in general, but perhaps we'd better confine ourselves to the sufferings of children.