Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point 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.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!
Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human.
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.
I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.
To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.
The soul is healed by being with children.
People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
Right or wrong, it’s very pleasant to break something from time to time.
But how could you live and have no story to tell?
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
To love someone means to see them as God intended them.
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.
You can be sincere and still be stupid.
If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man.
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.
I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.