“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

Everything belonged to him–but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel–it is, before all, to make you see.

It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.

The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victims of nature, it is that they are conscious of it.

In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine.

It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.

We live in the flicker — may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday.

Kisses are the remnants of paradise.

He struggled with himself, too. I saw it — I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.

Reality, as usual, beats fiction out of sight.

I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself.

I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.

There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.

A word carries far, very far, deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space.

The challenges in our lives are there to STRENGTHEN our CONVICTIONS. They are NOT there to run us over.

I was never crippled until I lost hope.

Again, I see no reason why the belief that we are insignificant or fortuitous should lessen our faith.

I think I ended up being the scarlet woman partly because of my rather puritannical upbringing and beliefs. I always chose to think I was in love and that love was synonymous with marriage.

That said, your values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact, the more you live by your beliefs, the more you will endure the censure of the world.

If your belief system is not founded in an objective reality, you should not be making decisions that affect other people.

When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.