But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.

God cannot be understood by logical reasoning but only by submission.

All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government's ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.

From the child of five to myself is but a step. But from the newborn baby to the child of five is an appalling distance.

Where there is a man who does not labor because another is compelled to work for him, there slavery is.

Violence produces only something resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence.