It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life

It was then that I began to look into the seams of your doctrine. I wanted only to pick at a single knot; but when I had got that undone, the whole thing raveled out. And then I understood that it was all machine-sewn.

Do you know what we are those of us who count as pillars of society? We are society's tools, neither more nor less.

Writing has... been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.

It's a liberation to know that an act of spontaneous courage is yet possible in this world. An act that has something of unconditional beauty.

The man-at-arms is the only man.

But I almost think we are all of us ghosts. It is not only what we have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us. It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth. They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake them off. Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts gliding between the lines.