'They can rule us as long as they will: they can treat us as slaves, and think they have got us safe and tight because we don't speak and don't stir.'

'Do you remember Ofelia? You asked me once why I don’t believe in a God. My God died that day.'

'We have had enough of sacrifice, and we don't want any more. We want, every one of us, to live our own life.'

'What has it to do with you? Can’t I do as I like with my own body?'

'Martyrs, Heroes! It's fine to talk about them when they're dead! But try living with them!'

'Love? It’s only a dream of something unattainable.'

'Pain? – I would go through it all again if there was any hope at the end of it.'

'That’s the trouble with you fanatics; you don’t think of the people who have to live with you.'

'When one says goodbye to life...one says good riddance...!'

'It is one of the many curious diseases of this epoch, to be unhappy; a kind of moral unhealthiness.'

'You don’t know what these fanatics are like. You can’t do anything with them.'

'It's so lonely to be always in the right!'

The Gadfly