To live longer than forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral. Who does live beyond forty? Answer that, sincerely and honestly I will tell you who do: fools and worthless fellows. I.
The instinct of self-preservation and the urge to self-destruction are equally strong in man! The Devil has equal a sway over humanity as God until a time still unknown to us.
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.
The most degrading cross has always produced the greatest glory and force, as long as the humility of the martyrdom is sincere. But do you have that humility? What you need is not a challenge but infinite humility and humiliation! You mustn’t despise those who judge you, but believe in them sincerely, as in a great church; then you will triumph over them and turn them toward you by your example, and you will be united in love – ah, if only you could endure it!
And indeed, what aim in life is more important and sacred than a father’s? To what should one adhere, if not to one’s family?
I swear to you that I am not quite such an ass as I like to appear sometimes, although I am rather an ass, I admit.
I was also afraid to the point of illness of being ridiculous, and therefore slavishly worshipped routine in everything to do with externals; I loved falling into the common rut, and feared any eccentricity in myself with all my soul. But how could I hold out? I was morbidly developed, as a man of our time ought to be developed. And they were all dull-witted and as like one another as a flock of sheep.
Not that I will ever believe there is nothing in common between any two people, as some declare is the case. I am sure people make a great mistake in sorting each other into groups, by appearances;.
Love had raised them from the dead, and the heart of each held endless springs of life for the heart of the other.
Rather than go preaching to people about what they ought to be, show them through your own example. Carry it out yourselves in practice, and everyone will follow you.
There are situations in life which bring the impartial observer to the conclusion that suicide is a luxury which is within the reach of, and permissible to, wealthy people.
You have only to creep into a secluded corner or into a crocodile, to shut your eyes, and you immediately devise a perfect millennium for mankind.
In every man’s memory there are things he won’t reveal to others, except, perhaps, to his friends. And there are things he won’t reveal even to friends, only, perhaps, to himself, and there, too, in secret. And finally, there are things he is afraid to reveal even to himself, and every decent man has quite an accumulation of them. In fact, the more decent the man, the more of them he has stored up.
But she forgot nothing, and he sometimes forgot much too quickly, and, often that same day, encouraged by her composure, would laugh and frolic over the champagne, if friends stopped by. What venom must have been in her eyes at those moments yet he noticed nothing!
There are strange friendships: two friends are almost ready to eat each other, they live like that all their lives, and yet they cannot part.
No, I’d better sit on to the end,′ I went on thinking; ’you would be pleased, my friends, if I went away. Nothing will induce me to go. I’ll go on sitting here and drinking to the end, on purpose, as a sign that I don’t think you of the slightest consequence.
The enjoyment of the sufferer finds expression in those moans; if he did not feel enjoyment in them he would not moan.
She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. “Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate... Oh, how I... hate them all!
And so – if it’s shame, let it be shame, if it’s disgrace, let it be disgrace, if it’s degradation, let it be degradation, and the worse, the better – that’s what I chose.
Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our last epoch – that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it.