Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.

I was dying when you came.

One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.

We teachers make the road, others will make the journey.

O darkness, the sky is a gloomy precinct Whose door you close, and whose key the soul owns; And night divides itself in half, being diabolical and holy, Between Ilis, the black angel, and Christ, the starry Human Being.

...But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.