“To live an eternity in hell without one’s love. He supposed that could be perceived as somewhat vexing.”

“I think he seriously believes that deflowering an angel could mean an eternity in fiery hell.”

“I suppose that one’s years spent living do not reflect a measure of our souls or strength of character.”

“Suppose a human being has thus put his ear, as it were, to the heart chamber of the world will and felt the roaring desire for existence pouring from there into all the veins of the world, as a thundering current or as the gentlest brook, dissolving into a mist—how could he fail to break suddenly? How could he endure to perceive the echo of innumerable shouts of pleasure and woe in the "wide space of the world night," enclosed in the wretched glass capsule of the human individual, without inexorably fleeing toward his primordial home, as he hears this shepherd's dance of metaphysics? But if such a work could nevertheless be perceived as a whole, without denial of individual existence; if such a creation could be created without smashing its creator—whence do we take the solution of such a contradiction?”

“Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.”

“His manual of heaven and hell lay open before me, and I could perceive my nothingness in this scheme.”