“That a man lives is because he is straight. That a man who dupes others survives is because he has been fortunate enough to be spared.”

“What virtue is there in a man who demonstrates goodness because he has been bred to it? It is his habit from youth. But a man who has known unkindness and want, for him to be kind and charitable to those who have been the cause of his misfortunes, that is a virtuous man.”

“A man is held to be criminal,sometimes, by the great ones of the earth,not because he has committed a crime himself but because he knows of one which has been committed.”

“Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.”

“How is a man fortunate to live in the darkness, brother?""Why do you wonder?" asked Blaise. "For only he who has lived in darkness truly knows and values the light.”

“There is no man...however wise, who has not at some period in his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man...”