Men become accustomed to poison by degrees.

A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.

Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

So your desire is to do nothing? Well, you shall not have a week, a day, an hour, free from oppression. You shall not be able to lift anything without agony. Every passing minute will make your muscles crack. What is feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become difficult. Life will become monstrous about you. To come, to go, to breathe, will be so many terrible tasks for you. Your lungs will feel like a hundred-pound weight.

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.