He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle.

He had power only to feel, and feeling was torment.

Desire was only another weapon, like hunger, loneliness, and cold arrayed against him by his tormentors

It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.

Never did he succeed in getting what he wanted out of life and he did not know what he wanted.

Man is so wretched that, while he shapes all of his conduct to gratify his passions, he groans incessantly under their tyranny. He can endure neither their violence, nor the violence that he would have to inflict on himself in order to rid himself of their yoke. He is frustrated not only by his vices, but also by the things that would cure them; and he cannot come to terms either with the discomfort of his afflictions or with the task of curing himself.

I dream of wanting — and all I want seems to me worthless.

Already then, there was in my subconsciousness as unsatisfactoriness about powerlessness, which was accompanied by being locked in a cage, whereby made taking an initiative, of any kind, impossible

In vain she told herself that he was unworthy any woman's trust and love, still the unconquerable sentiment that once made her happiness now remained to become her torment.

To suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o'er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is.

Man is so wretched that, while directing all his conduct towards satisfying his passions, he constantly moans about their tyranny: he cannot bear their violence, nor the violence he must use against himself in order to free himself from their yoke; he finds them disgusting, but so too their remedies, and he cannot come to terms with the pain of his illness, nor with the labour necessary for a cure.

He has no native Passion, because he is not a Thinker — & has probably weakened his Intellect by the haunting Fear of becoming extravagant.

Je n'ai plus aucune force, aucun courage, aucune domination sur moi aucun pouvoir même de mettre en mouvement ma volonté. Je ne peux plus vouloir ; mais quelqu'un veut pour moi ; et j'obéis.

This love was a torment, and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom.

Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing; his soul leaped, for he thought he was free; he loved no longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet.