All a man can betray is his conscience.

Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.

Madness alone is truly terrifying, inasmuch as you cannot placate it by threats, persuasion, or bribes.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.

A man is a worker. If he is not that he is nothing.

Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy