It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader.
Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow – they don’t hurt anybody. They will dry Nastenka.
Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka!
Bad people are to be found everywhere, but even among the worst there may be something good.
Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!
It is always so, when we are unhappy we feel more strongly the unhappiness of others; our feeling is not shattered, but becomes concentrated...
Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Don’t trouble it, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent.
The Russian soul is a dark place.
I’m drunk but truthful.
May you be for ever blessed for that moment of bliss and happiness which you gave to another lonely and grateful heart. Isn’t such a moment sufficient for the whole of one’s life?
The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.
Man is stupid, phenomenally stupid.
On our earth we can only love withsuffering and through suffering.
Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.
In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall...
Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy. If anyone finds out he’ll become happy at once.
If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things.
Until you have become really, in actual fact, as brother to everyone, brotherhood will not come to pass.
We are born dead, and we are becoming more and more contented with our condition. We are acquiring the taste for it.
There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home.