“They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles.”

“When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.”

“Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind.”

“When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?" He replied: "Because no one admired me.”

“He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid.”

“It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.”

“A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.”