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.
The perpetration of a crime is accompanied by illness!
The man who is happy is fulfilling the purpose of existence.
Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!
The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight.
Reality is infinitely diverse, compared with even the subtlest conclusions of abstract thought, and does not allow of clear-cut and sweeping distinctions. Reality resists classification.
Whether one showed you and execution or a little finger, you would extract an equally edifying thought from both of them, and would still be content. That’s the way to get on in life.
Everything seems stupid when it fails.
Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.
Who doesn’t desire his fathers death?
Life had stepped into the place of theory.
Hang your merit. I don’t seek anyone’s approbation.
I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is.
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.