“The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be explained by another man.”

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age”

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”

“Man is profoundly dependent on the reflection of himself in another man's soul, be it even the soul of an idiot.”

“Yes, man is broad, too broad, indeed. I'd have him narrower. The devil only knows what to make of it! What to the mind is shameful is beauty and nothing else to the heart. Is there beauty in Sodom? Believe me, that for the immense mass of mankind beauty is found in Sodom. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man.”

“The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.”