Good and evil keep very exact accounts... and the face of every man is their ledger.

There is no escaping, at times, the gloomy suspicion that fiddling with pens and ink is, after all, no fit employment for a grown man.

Every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong

I am Manuel. I have lived in the loneliness which is common to all men, but the difference is that I have known it. Now it is necessary for me, as it is necessary for all men, to die in this same loneliness, and I know that there is no help for it.

For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.

While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.

I have followed after the truth, across this windy planet upon which every person is nourished by one or another lie.