I think that it would be less difficult to live eternally than to be deprived of sleep throughout life.
Love is a scandal of the personal sort.
It is depressing to hear the unfortunate or dying man jest.
Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.
It’s immoral to steal, but you can take things.
My mistress has come home; at last I’ve seen her. Now I’m ready to die.
A man can deceive his fiancee or his mistress as much as he likes and, in the eyes of a woman he loves, an ass may pass for a philosopher. But a daughter is a different matter.
Oh, I have now a mania for shortness. Whatever I read – my own or other people’s works – it all seems to me not short enough.
The aim of fiction is absolute and honest truth.
Life has gone by as if I never lived.
What’s the use of talking? You can see for yourself that this is a barbarous country; the people have no morals; and the boredom!
You look boldly ahead; isn’t it only that you don’t see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes.
A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.
In all my life I never met anyone so frivolous as you two, so crazy and unbusinesslike. I tell you in plain Russian your property is going to be sold and you don’t seem to understand what I say.
It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.
In Russia there is no philosophy, but philosophize everything, even the small fry.
It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich.
Ah, Caviar! I keep on eating it, but can never get my fill. Like olives. It’s a lucky thing it’s not salty.
When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.
Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and only in the summer. In the city in winter they lose half of their appeal.