You should know our mania for building is stronger than ever. It is a diabolical thing. It consumes money and the more you build, the more you want to build. It's a sickness like being addicted to alcohol.

I do not love strife, because I have always found that in the end each remains of the same opinion.

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.

In my position you have to read when you want to write and to talk when you would like to read.

Any man who doesn't partake in cigar smoking is nothing more than a weak-willed, meandering oaf, and I would never put my lips to those of any creature, man or beast, whose lips were not fresh awash in the currents of cigar smoke.'

What right can give anyone authority to inflict torture upon a citizen when it is still unknown whether he is innocent or guilty?

If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.