The more incompetent one feels, the more eager he is to fight.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays & the soft tender gentle memories that come with them...’ -Father Zossima

My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmatic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?

It's in the homes of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness.

Compassion is the chief law of human existence.

If God does not exist, everything is permitted.