“Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.”

“It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable”

“You can share in my joy, but I don’t want to share my misery. No, I want to give away my misery. Go ahead, take it all.”

“There are things you can describe in life and things you just can’t. There are dangers and adventures, miseries and fear that you can tell about… well, then there’s hope and joy and love – and those are beyond the power of words to describe.”

“Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it, or else, for ever and ever, the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.”

“He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully”