“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent”

“Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

“He went down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, but he saw her, as one sees the sun, without looking.”

“Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should be.”

“Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.”

“But what can I do?' - I answer those who speak thus. - '... must I therefore not point out the evil which I clearly, unquestionably see?”

“Hell is the inability to love.”

“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”

“In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving harmony.”

“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”

“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”

“The best solution is to be kind and good while ignoring the opinions of others.”

“But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.”

“He was much changed and grown even thinner since Pyotr Ivanovich had last seen him, but, as is always the case with the dead, his face was handsomer and above all more dignified than than when he was alive.”

“For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life is possible at all.