“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.”

“ in many strong people there seems to be a sort of natural need--to find someone or something to bow down to”

“No, not 'Very well, Your Excellency', but simply 'Your Excellency'! I told you to watch your tone, Colonel! I also trust you will not be offended if I suggest you make a slight bow and at the same time incline your body forward, so as to indicate respect and also, as it were, readiness to dash off on an errand for him. I've been in the company of generals myself, so I know what I'm talking about ... So 'Your Excellency'.”

“It wasn't you I was bowing to, but the whole of human suffering.”

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

“For I love the empress of my soul. I love and I cannot but love. You yourself see the whole of me. I shall fly to her, fall down before her: you were right to walk past me.. farewell and forget your victim, never trouble yourself more!”

“I want to suffer so that I may love.”