Often the losing of a battle leads to the winning of progress. Less glory but greater liberty: the drum is silent and the voices of reason can be heard.

Humanity is similarity. All men are of the same clay. No difference, here below at least, lies in predestination. The same darkness before, the same flesh during, the same ashes after life. But ignorance, mixed with the human composition, blackens it. This incurable ignorance possesses the heart of man, and there becomes Evil.

One becomes gradually accustomed to poison.

In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday.

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

After a pause he added: "My friends remember this: There is no such thing as a weed and no such thing as a bad man.There are only bad cultivators".

Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin.