Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

Be near your brothers. Not just one, but both of them.

Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.

My brother asked the birds to forgive him: that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side –a little happier, anyway– and children and all animals, if you yourself were nobler than you are now. It’s all like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds too, consumed by an all-embracing love in a sort of transport, and pray that they too will forgive you your sin.

Milhões de pessoas morreriam de aborrecimento, por falta de imaginação, como sucede às moscas no Outono, se as privassem do oxigénio viciado da mentira.

I love mankind, he said, "but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.