“Countless as the sands of sea are human passions, and not all of them are alike, and all of them, base and noble alike, are at first obedient to man and only later on become his terrible masters.”

You can’t imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.

I saw that I’d get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.

Gambling is the great leveller. All men are equal- at cards.

They’re thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he’ll learn all that is necessary for him to know.

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.

Man is such a wondrous being that it is never possible to count up all his merits at once. The more you study him, the more new particulars appear, and their description would be endless.

As you pass from the tender years of youth into harsh and embittered manhood, make sure you take with you on your journey all the human emotions! Don’t leave them on the road, for you will not pick them up afterwards!

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all

The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral… Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That’s my idea.

For contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.

Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.

There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you’ll be left without bread and without views.

Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.

But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: “This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life.

He looks up in the sky. I count stars in his eyes.

How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

One has to be able to count if only so that at fifty one doesn’t marry a girl of twenty.

When I’m an old man, I don’t want to count the years, we forgot to share.

The relationship that counts most in my life is the one I have with myself. I have a great, great, great relationship with myself, and it gets better and better as I get older. The other day, I was talking to Barry in the car and I said, ‘I’m so glad I’m me!’

I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.