“I do value my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes.”

It is heavenly, when I overcome My earthly desires But nevertheless, when I'm not successful, It can also be quite pleasurable.”

“Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.”

“As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.”

“The Kingdom of God is Within You,”

“It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.”

“Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.”

“Though men in their hundreds of thousands had tried their hardest to disfigure that little corner of the earth where they had crowded themselves together, paving the ground with stones so that nothing could grow, weeding out every blade of vegetation, filling the air with the fumes of coal and gas, cutting down trees and driving away every beast and every bird -- spring, however, was still spring, even in the town. The sun shone warm, the grass, wherever it had not been scraped away, revived and showed green not only on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards but between the paving-stones as well, and the birches, the poplars and the wild cherry-trees were unfolding their sticky, fragrant leaves, and the swelling buds were bursting on the lime trees; the jackdaws, the sparrows and the pigeons were cheerfully getting their nests ready for the spring, and the flies, warmed by the sunshine, buzzed gaily along the walls. All were happy -- plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people -- adult men and women -- never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world, given to all creatures to enjoy -- a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love. No, what they considered sacred and important were their own devices for wielding power over each other.”

“Mathematics is the queen of disciplines.... it will drive the nonsense out of your head!”

“Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."

“But despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to drink -- he recovered.”

“Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”

“All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone- had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.”

“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

“Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--that's in your hands.”