Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.
Man is what he believes.
Watching a woman make Russian pancakes, you might think that she was calling on the spirits or extracting from the batter the philosopher’s stone.
I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious.
When a person hasn’t in him that which is higher and stronger than all external influences, it is enough for him to catch a good cold in order to lose his equilibrium and begin to see an owl in every bird, to hear a dog’s bark in every sound.
Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.
Despicable means used to achieve laudable goals render the goals themselves despicable.
I confess I seldom commune with my conscience when I write.
Even while lying, you’ll be believed if you speak with authority.
The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything.
In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations!
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can’t be cured.
My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and absolute freedom – freedom from violence and falsehood, no matter how the last two manifest themselves.
A good upbringing means not that you won’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice it when someone else does.
If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.
The University brings out all abilities, including incapability.
Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.
The more refined one is, the more unhappy.