"The right of withdrawing from the ranks of the living as soon as annihilation seems more endurable than existence and I choose to call death to release me."
"The gods, it is true, cannot die."
"And the Christians only to link a new life on to death."
"But a fairer and a happier than this on earth." They say it is a life of bliss. But the mother of this everlasting life is the ineradicable love of existence in even the most wretched of our race, and hope is its father. They believe in a complete freedom from suffering in that other world because He whom they call their Redeemer, the crucified Christ, has saved them from all sufferings by His death."
"And can a man take upon him the sufferings of others, think you, like a garment or a burden?"
"They say so, and my friend from Athens is quite convinced. In books of magic there are many formulas by which misfortunes may be transferred not merely from men to beasts, but from one human being to another. Very remarkable experiments have even been carried out with slaves, and to this day I have to struggle in several, provinces to suppress human sacrifices by which the gods are to be reconciled or propitiated. Only think of the innocent Iphigenia who was dragged to the altar; did not the gulf in the Forum close when Curtius had leaped into it? When Fate shoots a fatal arrow at you and I receive it in my breast, perhaps she is content with the chance victim and does not enquire as to whom she has hit."
"The gods would be exorbitant indeed if they were not content with your blood for mine!"
"Life is life, and that of the young is of better worth than that of the old. Many joys will yet bloom for you."
"And you are indispensable to the whole world."
"After me another will come. Are you ambitious, boy?"