Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
Write about this man who, drop by drop, squeezes the slave’s blood out of himself until he wakes one day to find the blood of a real human being – not a slave’s – coursing through his veins.
The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.
The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on; science and art are as well.
It’s easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook.
The sea has neither meaning nor pity.
Reason and justice tell me there’s more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.
No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair, from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.
Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.
People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
Even in Siberia there is happiness.
A naive man is nothing better than a fool. But you women contrive to be naive in such a way that in you it seems sweet, and gentle, and proper, and not as silly as it really is.
A woman can become a man’s friend only in the following stages – first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.
Fine. Since the tea is not forthcoming, let’s have a philosophical conversation.
If you want to work on your art, work on your life.
If one wants to lead a good life, A HUMAN LIFE, one must work.
And what does it mean – dying? Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and only the five we know are lost at death, while the other ninety-five remain alive.
When you want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
I have no will of my own. Never did. Limp and lily-livered, I always obey – is it possible that’s attractive to women?