Imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. But you know since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. Now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn?

I thought: hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.

Trust only him who doubts.

Why should young people look for guides who hang out gided placards to advertise themselves? They would do better to look for friends, unite with them, and advance together towards some quarter where it seems possible to survive.

When a great man has become petrified, and everyone begins to proclaim his greatness, he has already turned into a puppet.

I felt that if a man's proposals met with approval, it should encourage him; if they met with opposition, it should make him fight back; but the real tragedy for him was to lift up his voice among the living and meet with no response neither approval nor opposition just as if he were left helpless in a boundless desert.

You have to reform yourself before reforming society and the world.