A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.
To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.
Trifles, trifles are what matter!
If you happen to have a wart on your nose or forehead, you cannot help imagining that no one in the world has anything else to do but stare at your wart, laugh at it, and condemn you for it, even though you have discovered America.
Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it.
One must first learn to live oneself before one blames others.
Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.
It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.
The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.
To cook your hare you must first catch it.
Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.
Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea. And there is only one higher idea on earth, and it is the idea of the immortality of the human soul, for all other “higher” ideas of life by which humans might live derive from that idea alone.
Russia was a slave in Europe but would be a master in Asia.
I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learnt the truth last November on the third of November, to be precise and I remember every instant since.
The sky was horribly dark, but one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently. That was because that star had given me an idea : I decided to kill myself that night .
Even if we are occupied with important things and even if we attain honour or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it once was here, when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us perhaps better than we are.
Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom. If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it.
Beggars, especially noble beggars, should never show themselves in the street; they should ask for alms through the newspapers. It’s still possible to love one’s neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.