“Every new time will give its law.”

An artist is a man who digests his own subjective impressions and knows how to find a general objective meaning in them, and how to express them in a convincing form.

When a woman gets married it is like jumping into a hole in the ice in the middle of winter: you do it once and you remember it the rest of your days.

Jail doesn’t teach anyone to do good, nor Siberia, but a man-yes! A man can teach another man to do good-believe me!

The Englishman walks before the law like a trained horse in the circus. He has the sense of legality in his bones, in his muscles.

What can you do by killing? Nothing. You kill one dog, the master buys another-that’s all there is to it.

Talent I say is what an actor needs. And talent is faith in oneself, one’s own powers.

One word of praise from a woman is dearer to me than a whole ode from a man.

It is quiet and peaceful here, the air is good, there are numerous gardens, and in them nightingales sing and spies lurk under the bushes.

Anger is like ice, and also quick to melt.

To an old man any place that’s warm is homeland.

Hunger can explain many acts. It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger.

When everything is easy one quickly gets stupid.

Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.

An honest man is all right even if he’s an idiot…but a crook must have brains.

Remembrance of the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future.

Politics is something similar to the lower physiological functions, with the unpleasant difference that political functions are unavoidably carried out in public.