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

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

We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I've never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it'll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it'll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow. On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.

Every coming year is as bad as the previous one, the only difference being that in most cases it is even worse.

If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It's better to live somehow than not at all.

Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.

Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.