Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.

Sometimes we go to a play and after the curtain has been up five minutes we have a sense of being able to settle back in the arms of the playwright. Instinctively we know that the playwright knows his business.

We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things used to be so much better, life today is worse than it used to be.

A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.

It is always "Youth, youth," when there is nothing else to be said.

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.

He is an emancipated thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.