A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the Universe, 'The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. - Stephen Crane

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it — It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.