“As I am never better than when I am mad; then methinks I am a brave fellow; then I do wonders: but reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the hell.”

“If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles.”

“Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.”

“These reasonings are unconnected: "I am richer than you, therefore I am better"; "I am more eloquent than you, therefore I am better." The connection is rather this: "I am richer than you, therefore my property is greater than yours;" "I am more eloquent than you, therefore my style is better than yours." But you, after all, are neither property nor style.”

“Forward, my brave fellows, forward! Carry me into the fort. If I am to die, I want to die at the head of the column!”

“Always do what you're afraid to do.
…
I will prove myself strong when they think I am sick.
I will prove myself brave when they think I am weak.”

“Am I mad, to see what others do not see, or are they mad who are responsible for all that I am seeing?”

“If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.”

“What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.”

“Whether or not the soul is immortal is a fact in nature and cannot be changed by any book whatever. If I am immortal, I am. If am not, no book can render me so. It is no more wonderful that I should live again than that I do live.”