The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges and confronts everything else.

If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it To-morrow.

I have studied men’s vices in order to defend myself against them; and I have found that, like serpents, they fly the light.

God has supplied man with the intelligence that enables him to overcome the limitations of natural conditions. I furnished myself with a light.

He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, ‘Go to the cross-roads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth… and say aloud to the whole world, I am a murderer.’ … It came over him like a fit… He fell to the earth on the spot…. He knelt down… and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture.

I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.

I am perfectly happy now… It is the divinest thing in us. Don’t sneer at it, Harry… I want to be good. I can’t bear the idea of my soul being hideous.

This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors… it would reveal to him his own soul.