It's in despair that you find the sharpest pleasures, particularly when you are most acutely aware of the hopelessness of your position.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

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.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

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.

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

If you can't talk about it, you can't change it.

In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end of it.

What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.

Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.

Man would sooner have the Void for his purpose than be void of Purpose.

The terrible thing is that one cannot be a Communist and not let oneself in for the shameful act of recantation. One cannot be a Communist and preserve an iota of one's personal integrity.

Well not exactly," the father said."Nobody could do that. but it didn't take me long.

Most institutional investors feel compelled to swing at almost every pitch and forgo batting selectivity for frequency.

What prompted me to make these pictures [of bomb-cratered roads] was the impression that the ground was ripped by the shock, that it was swallowing itself.

As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful.