“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.”

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”

“Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.”

“The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.”

“But the church, like a tender, loving mother holds aloof from active punishment herself, as the sinner is too severely punished already by the civil law, and there must be at least someone to have pity on him. The church holds aloof, above all, because its judgment alone contains the truth...”

“There is silent and long-suffering sorrow to be met with among the peasantry. It withdraws into itself and is still. But there is a grief that breaks out, and from that minute it bursts into tears and finds vent in wailing. This is particularly common with women. But it is no lighter a grief than the silent. Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more. Such grief does not desire consolation. It feeds on the sense of its hopelessness. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to reopen the wound.”

“You can't be angry with me, because I am a hundred times more severely punished than you, if only by the fact that I shall never see you again.”