“A singular fact, that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.”

I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.

There is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory; and any man who does, is not worthy of one.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.

There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.

We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!

Generosity is the flower of justice.

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

Happiness is like a butterfly.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

Exterminate all the brutes!

The battle between emotion and logic is most brutal.

There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former are of the same nature as the brutal insensitivity of the latter.

I love the fight game. I like the brutality. I like the mentality. I like the aggressiveness, but I like the technique and skill. I like the stakes. I like the people around in the gym. I like the everyday, working class feel of a boxing gym.

I hope my recordings of my own works won’t inhibit other people’s performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn’t always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

When crossing someone’s borders you have to be prepared to engage in a war that is far more brutal than if it were to take place on neutral territory.

Now is the time to stop drifting and wake up – to assess yourself, the people around you, and the direction in which you are headed in as cold and brutal a light as possible. Without fear.

To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life.