“Why," said the saint, "did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved mankind far too well? Now I love God! Mankind I do not love; mankind is a thing too imperfect for me. Love of mankind would be fatal to me.”

“Was it not because I loved man all-too-much? Now I love God. man I love not. Man is for me too imperfect a thing. Love of man would kill me.”

“What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind?--They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.”

“To love mankind for the sake of God-that has been the most nobel and far-fetched feeling yet achieved by human beings. The idea that without some sanctifying ulterior motive, a love of mankind is just one more brutish stupidity, that the predisposition to such a love must first find its weight, its refinement, its grain of salt and pinch of ambergris in another even higher predisposition-whoever first felt and 'witnessed' this, and however much his tongue may have stuttered in attempting to express such a delicate idea: may he remain forever venerable and holy in our sight as the man who as yet has flown the highest and erred the most beautifully!”

“There is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind.”

“Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.”

“A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.”