The joy of killing! the joy of seeing killing done - these are traits of the human race at large.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

Adam was but human-this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.

Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep - but an intruder came, now, that would not "down". It was conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came [...] So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing. Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent pirates fell peacefully to sleep.

I said it was a brutal thing.

"No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it.

I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself.