Pessimism of the spirit; optimism of the will.

Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labours of one's own brain, choose one's sphere of activity, take an active part in the creation of the history of the world, be one's own guide, refusing to accept passively and supinely from outside the moulding of one' own personality?

The old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms.

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born

All men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.

The abolition of the class struggle does not mean the abolition of the need to struggle as a principle of development.

I turn and turn in my cell like a fly that doesn't know where to die.