“Everything on earth is beautiful, everything — except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.”

The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.

Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.

It’s easier to ask for money from the poor than from the wealthy.

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

The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.

Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don’t have a passport.

I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.

Brevity – the sister of talent.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.

They say philosophers and wise men are indifferent. Wrong. Indifference is a paralysis of the soul, a premature death.

For God’s sake, have some self-respect and do not run off at the mouth if your brain is out to lunch.

The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappiness does not unite people, but separates them.

I can only regard with bewilderment an educated man who is also religious.

Better a debauched canary than a pious wolf.

When all is said and done, no literature can outdo the cynicism of real life; you won’t intoxicate with one glass someone who has already drunk up a whole barrel.