“Justice is to be found only in the imagination.”

A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.

The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.

Contentment is the only real wealth.

I am a misanthrope yet utterly benevolent.

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.

The only true solution would be a convention under which all the governments would bind themselves to defend collectively any country that was attacked.

Lying is the greatest of all sins.

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.

For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent.

One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.

It is not sufficient to be worthy of respect in order to be respected.

I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.

It is my express wish that in awarding the [Nobel Prizes] no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.

A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.

The truthful man is usually a liar.

The whole world recognizes Russia’s cultural achievements. It is impossible to imagine the world culture without Russian culture, without our music and literature.

Imagine doing your job at the highest level to where you’re not needed anymore.

You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.

Imagine painting all the statues in the world in the color of the sky

Every man has his own heaven, for me, heaven has always been being in the movies. When I used to imagine this place there was always a bright light.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

There is no place I know that compares to pure imagination.

Reality is for people that lack imagination.