I refuse to see literature as amusement, as a game. I think that you ought not to approach literature without a moral responsibility for every word you write.

Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.

We hear a constant clamor for rights, rights, always rights, but so very little about responsibility. And we have forgotten God. The need now is for selflessness, for a spirit of sacrifice, for a willingness to put aside personal gains for the salvation of the whole Western world.

To preserve his life, should a man pay everything that gives it color, scent and excitement?

... that maxim of Descartes: "Question everything!" Question everything!

The meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul...

One cannot declare that only his faith is correct and all other faiths are not. God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God. One must not have any negative attitude to any religion but nonetheless the depth of understanding God and the depth of applying God's commandments is different in different religions.