If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.

Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us.

I believe the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

It's the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery.

The enemies of living life; outdated little liberals, afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of the person and freedom, decrepit preachers of carrion and rot! What do they have: gray heads, the golden mean, the most abject and philistine giftlessness, envious equality, equality without personal dignity, equality as understood by a lackey or a Frenchman of the year ninety-three...And scoundrells, above all, scoundrels, scoundrels everywhere!

Or renounce life altogether! Accept fate obediently as it is, once and for all, and stifle everything in myself, renouncing any right to act, to live, to love.

It is easier for a Russian to become an atheist than for anyone else in the world.