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Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn’t love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.
How foolish one was to be afraid of loneliness.
What an absurd thing it was to expect happiness in a world so full of misery.
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, evil—or else an absolute ignorance. Outside the rest-house he stopped again. The lights inside would have given an extraordinary impression of peace if one hadn’t known, just as the stars on this clear night gave also an impression of remoteness, security, freedom. If one knew, he wondered, the facts, would one have to feel pity even for the planets? if one reached what they called the heart of the matter?
To be a human being one had to drink the cup. If one were lucky on one day, or cowardly on another, it was presented on a third occasion.
There was only a single person in the world who was unpitiable, oneself.
In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.
