Book: De Profundis. Page 3

... Suffering is the most sensitive of all that is in the world. Whatever was broken in the world of thought or movement - all Suffering responds consonant and painful, though subtle, vibration. Compared to this, trembling, quivering sheet of flattened gold, fixing the direction of the forces, invisible to the eye, varies too harsh. It is a wound that bleeds from the touch of any hands except the hands of Love, but the touch of Love also makes her bleeds, but not from pain.

We clowns suffer. We are the clowns with broken hearts. We were meant to over us amused.

Love can read the writing on the most distant star...

You can't just keep warm on a breast a snake that's eating at you; you cannot get up every night to sow thorns in the garden of his soul.

Greatness of soul is not transmitted by contact like an infection. Lofty thoughts and high feelings condemned to loneliness by their very nature.

Family life should not be like any flag waving on the streets, or the horn, which hoarsely trumpeted on the rooftops.
(Family life is not a red flag waving in the streets, and not pipe, which is loudly trumpeted at the fair.)

You should find at least one false excuse, as you will immediately find a hundred, and will remain exactly the same as before.

... sense of duty - the most callous of the feelings connecting two people.

There is no Vice worse than emotional emptiness.

A man is often not himself, but someone else. Thoughts of most people - it's someone else's opinions, their lives an imitation, their passions - borrowed passions. Christ was not only the greatest but also the first Individualist in History. People tried to imagine Him an ordinary philanthropist, by likening It to repulsive the philanthropists of the nineteenth century, or called Him an Altruist, added to people uneducated and sentimental. But He was neither the one nor the other. Of course, He pitied the poor and those who are thrown into prison, the downtrodden, the unfortunate, but even more pity caused Him wealthy, those who persistently pursue pleasure, those who lose freedom, submitting to the slavery of things, those who wear fine clothing and live in the Royal chambers. Riches and Pleasure seemed to Him a much deeper tragedy than the Poverty and Suffering.

Emotion and sentimentality is not that other, as the flip side of cynicism.

Nobody can shift their responsibility to others. Sooner or later, the responsibility reverts to the person who is obliged to carry her.

Pleasure, the beautiful body, pain is a beautiful soul.

Grief and Sorrow is a wound, bleeding from any touch except light hand touch of Love, but even in this case the bleeding continues though it has no pain.