Religions are the exponents of the highest comprehension of life... within a given age in a given society... a basis for evaluating human sentiments. If feelings bring people nearer to the religion's ideal... they are good; if these estrange them from it, and oppose it, they are bad.

But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.

Man recognizes that he will not die, only when he recognizes that he was never born, but always has been, is, and will be.

In our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling - should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men.

I don't think badly of people. I like everybody, and I'm sorry for everybody.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.