“The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist.”

“We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse broke our will. We were guilty and we confess it here: we were guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it.”

“There were things in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will remain.”

“That which exists possesses identity; he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.”

“It's because it makes no difference to her at all whether I speak or not; as if I didn't exist and never had existed... the thing more inconceivable than one's death--never to have been born...”

“Man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.”

“There's so much nonsense about human inconstancy and the transience of all emotions. I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.”