“I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

“Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual envy, for luxury and ostentation. To have dinners, visits, carriages, rank and slaves to wait on one is looked upon as a necessity, for which life, honor and human feeling are sacrificed, and men even commit suicide if they are unable to satisfy it. We see the same thing among those who are not rich, while the poor drown their unsatisfied need and their envy in drunkenness. But soon they will drink blood instead of wine, they are being led on to it. I ask you, is such a man free?”

“I envy people that know love. That have someone who takes them as they are.”

“No one could have fathomed what a life he'd led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.”

“The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.”