At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on.

There are passions that it is not for man to choose.

it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.

The more debris there is the more it will show the governor's activity.

Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.

There are occasions when a woman, no matter how weak and impotent in character she may be in comparison with a man, will yet suddenly become not only harder than any man, but even harder than anything and everything in the world.

As countless as grains of sand by the sea are human passions, and they all differ; all of them, vile or lofty, begin by being under a man's control and then become his terrible masters. Blessed is he who has chosen the most lofty of passions: his immeasurable bliss grows and multiplies tenfold with every hour and minute, and he penetrates deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul.