I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction -- if a house is falling upon you, for instance -- one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may . . .

When . . . in the course of all these thousands of years has man ever acted in accordance with his own interests?

But people will laugh at all sorts of things.

You are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so put intellect above everything.

I punish myself for my whole life, my whole life I punish.

Therefore, in my incontrovertible capacity as plaintiff and defendant judge and accused, I condemn this nature, which has so brazenly and unceremoniously inflicted this suffering... since I am unable to destroy Nature, I am destroying myself, solely out of weariness of having to endure a tyranny in which there is no guilty party.

In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we.