Man is a creative animal, doomed to strive consciously for an object, and to engage in engineering—that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead. But the reason why he wants sometimes to go off at a tangent may be just that he is doomed to make the road, and perhaps to prove to himself that he is a man and not a piano-key.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

When you have children, even the hardest life seems full of happiness. All that is needed is to cherish love and keep one’s heart firm. Then even suffering becomes a joy, and hunger endured for the sake of one’s children is not felt as suffering... And though he himself may die, his feelings and ideas will live on in his children all their lives, for they inherit them together with his face.

But try only giving him complete freedom, unbinding his hands, widening the sphere of his activity—why, my God! Man will immediately begin to beg for guidance again. You were afraid; you mistook your cowardice for common sense, and you deceived yourselves into believing that you were acting wisely.

Open your eyes a little wider and look: is there really anything living now on the earth? What is it, and what is it called? We do not even know that. Take away from us all books, and we shall be at once confused, at a loss what to do; we shall not know what to join on to, what to hold by, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise.