My joy is that there is no such world at all, but that the substance of life is in everyone! There is no reason to be troubled because we are absurd, is there? For we really are: we are absurd, frivolous, we have bad habits, we're bored, we don't kno...
Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.
It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pi...
The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.
Do you know I don't know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it's only that I'm not able to express it...And what beautiful things there are at every step, that...
The Russian soul is a dark place.
Why is it that when you awake to the world of realities you nearly always feel, sometimes very vividly, that the vanished dream has carried with it some enigma which you have failed to solve?
If I had had the power to prevent my own birth I should certainly never have consented to accept existence under such ridiculous conditions.
I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.
We degrade God too much, ascribing to him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him.
I don't like being with grown-up people. I've known that a long time. I don't like it because I don't know how to get on with them.
A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.
We've already had Malthus, the friend of humanity. But the friend of humanity with shaky moral principles is the devourer of humanity, to say nothing of his conceit; for, wound the vanity of any one of these numerous friends of humanity, and he's rea...
Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.
- A necessidade de comer e beber é simplesmente o instinto de autoconservação! - Mas não acha que esse instinto de autopreservação por si só é importante? Ora, o instinto de autoconservação é a lei normal da humanidade! - Quem lhe disse is...
Alexandra, my eldest, here, plays the piano, or reads or sews; Adelaida paints landscapes and portraits (but never finishes any); and Aglaya sits and does nothing. I don't work too much, either.
There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explainin...
Mas, não obstante, eu acrescento que em qualquer pensamento genial ou no novo pensamento humano, ou simplesmente até em qualquer pensamento humano sério, que medra da cabeça de alguém, sempre resta algo que de maneira nenhuma se pode transmitir ...
