“I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange — ”

“There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.”

“I'm not proud, but I'm happy, and I think happiness makes a man even blinder than pride.”

“I have been taken by Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he said he to me, ‘Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?’ I replied, ‘Listen, I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.”

“Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.”

“Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy.”

“I regret having helped you clarify your past and having told you what I did.''Why?''Because I've instilled in your heart a feeling that wasn't there before: vengeance.”