I began to understand that suffering and disappointments and melancholy are there not to vex us or cheapen us or deprive us of our dignity but to mature and transfigure us.

He now detected this worldly sadness in Designori's face, expressed there with the greatest purity and intensity, as though his face were meant to be representative of many, to epitomize the secret sufferings and morbidity of a multitude.

Thoughts and sorrows seem to have remained on the other side of the mountains. Between tormented men and hateful deeds, a person has to think and sorrow so much! Back there it is so difficult and so desperately important to find a reason for staying alive. How else should a person go on living? Sheer misery makes one profound.

He saw mankind going through life in a childlike manner... which he loved but also despised.... He saw them toiling, saw them suffering, and becoming gray for the sake of things which seemed to him to be entirely unworthy of this price, for money, for little pleasures, for being slightly honoured....

When I struck, I thought I was hitting a strong man capable of defending himself - but it was a quiet, suffering man, unarmed, who surrendered in silence.

All life is a breath exhaled by God. All dying is a breath inhaled by God.

Everything that was not suffered to the end and finally concluded, recurred, and the same sorrows were undergone.