“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.”

All higher humor begins with ceasing to take oneself seriously.

My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves. A whole society composed of men afraid of the unknown within them!

When the suffering becomes acute enough, one goes forward.

Beauty does not bring happiness to the one who possesses it, but to the one who loves and admires it.

The truth is lived, not taught.

Oh, love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.

The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.

You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live.

Every experience has its element of magic.

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe.

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.

I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.

Loneliness is the way by which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself.

It has always been a happy thought to me that the creek runs on all night, new every minute, whether I wish it or know it or care, as a closed book on a shelf continues to whisper to itself its own inexhaustible tale.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

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

It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.

For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

Literature, it seems to me, is wisdom.