Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.

A person loves to talk about his illnesses although that is the least interesting part of his life.

An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.

Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbling youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.

When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say, 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair.'