...to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them.

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

Homeopathic doses are perhaps the strongest.

You’re a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn’t have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that’s no occupation for a gentleman.

But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for man to know all happiness.

The prince says that the world will be saved by beauty! And I maintain that the reason he has such playful ideas is that he is in love.