“We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.”

Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.

Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.

Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.

Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.

A good upbringing means not that you won’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice it when someone else does.

If you wish women to love you be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter & women fell in love with him.

Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.

In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.

Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.

You ask me what life is. That’s like asking what a carrot is. A carrot is a carrot, and there’s nothing more to know.

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an artist.

A man and a woman marry because both of them do not know what to do with themselves.

My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it’s dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can’t live without it.