To indulge it is to breed it. To punish it is to feed it. Madness knows no bridle but the knife.

Beliefs are the foundation of actions. Those who believed without doubting, he would say, acted without thinking. And those who acted without thinking were enslaved.

Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy.

There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.

Faith is the truth of passion. Since no passion is more true than another, faith is the truth of nothing.

It is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.