Six hours a day I lived under school discipline in active intercourse with people none of whom were known to those at home, and the other hours of the twenty-four I spent at home, or with relatives of the people at home, none of whom were known to anybody at school.

I was not given to looking at life in a rosy light.

I encountered among my comrades the most varied human traits, from frankness to reserve, from goodness, uprightness and kindness, to brutality and baseness.

When I was a little boy I did not, of course, trouble much about my appearance.

I admired in others the strength that I lacked myself.

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.

A love for humanity came over me, and watered and fertilised the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow, and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion.