Everything is habit with men, everything even in their social and political relations. Habit is the great motive-power.
You have revealed me to myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself.
You’re necessary to me, and that’s why I’ve come to you.
But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back-alley for ever – his filthy back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will with enjoyment.
I like revisiting, at certain times, spots where I was once happy; I like to shape the present in the image of the irretrievable past.
En todos los tiempos, el hombre honrado es un cobarde y un esclavo.
He never did anything to me it’s true, but I once played a most shameless nasty trick on him, and the moment I did it, I immediately hated him for it.
I did dream of it, chiefly because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no need of it.
Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognises that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime.
There are three powers, three powers alone, able to conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent rebels for their happiness-those forces are miracle, mystery and authority.
The monks used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the greater the sinner the more he loved him.
A dead man has no age.
I want to be there when every one suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built by this longing, and I am a believer.
If the suffering of children goes to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.
For the secret of human existence lies not only in living, but in knowing what to live for.
But... that’s absurd!′ he cried, flushing. ‘Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him- as you meant it to be.
Precious memories may remain even of a bad home, if only the hearth knows how to find what is precious.
I don’t need you to tell me I’m not well, though I don’t really know what’s wrong with me; I think I’m five times healthier than you are.
The flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.
A dull animal rage boiled within him.