One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.
Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.
People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about “these days,” imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of “these days” and that human nature changes with the times.
The possibility of killing one’s self is a safety valve. Having it, man has no right to say life is unbearable.
Man has received direct from God only one instrument wherewith to know himself and to know his relation to the universe – he has no other – and that instrument is reason.
I believe in one, incomprehensible God, the immortality of the soul and eternal retribution for our acts.
It’s all God’s will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.
I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.
He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women.
Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.
Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I’m alive, I must live and be happy.
Every man and every living creature has a sacred right to the gladness of springtime.
What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.
I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormentor.
To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.
There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy in fifteen minutes.
Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.
He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.
To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business.