The Imp of the Perverse

There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge.

To-day I wear these chains, and am HERE. To-morrow I shall be fetterless!--BUT WHERE?

If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?

There lives no man who at some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution.

I well, too well, understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost.

Death by the visitation of God.

That single thought is enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing [...] is indulged.

Si no hay junto a nosotros un brazo amigo que nos detenga, o somos incapaces de alejarnos, nos arrojamos, nos aniquilamos en el abismo.