“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.”

“The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.”

“They were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew that they would become unhappy.”

“Life is paradise, and we are all in paradise, but we refuse to see it.”

“Let me be sinful before everyone, but so that everyone will forgive me, and that is paradise. Am I not in paradise now?”

“And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?”

“Yes, Lise. You see, your question whether we do not despise that unhappy man by dissecting his soul was the question of a person who has suffered a lot. I'm afraid I don't know how to put it properly, but a person to whom such questions occur is himself capable of suffering.”