Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.

Civilization begins with distillation

I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.

This does not matter. This is not anything yet. It all depends on what you do with it, afterward.

And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

The salvation of the world is in man's suffering.