Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

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.

The future is as bright as the promises of God.

Stalin said artists are the engineers of human souls. I wanted to show what happens to the soul when the engineers get through with it.

The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream.

Whether I shall be unfortunate depends also on others; whether I shall be unhappy depends only on myself.

I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

In my worldview, there are filers, and there are pilers. Filers think alphabetically. Pilers think geologically.

LEARN FROM FAILURE. If you are an entrepreneur and your first venture wasn't a success, welcome to the club.

To me, politics is an extension of what I do in medicine.

old folks is the nation.

The outer storm ceases the moment the inner storm ends, for they are the same storm.