“The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats.”

“If a man feared defeat, he would never give battle... Every victory is inevitably succeeded by defeat. It is the nature of our lives. A man might fight a thousand battles and emerge triumphant from every one; still, he will suffer defeat in the end, for we die and we are forgotten. If we cannot face defeat, we must live always, throughout our lives, in fear. For it awaits us all.”

“Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it.”

“There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory; just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us.”

“Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.”

“We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it is not worth it. So we fight the long defeat.”