Of course my jokes are in poor taste, inappropriate, and confused; they reveal my lack of security. But that is because I have no respect for myself.

But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself.

A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.

Such power!" Adelaida cried all at once, peering greedily at the portrait over her sister's shoulder. "Where? What power?" Lizaveta Prokofyevna asked sharply. "Such beauty has power," Adelaida said hotly. "You can overturn the world with such beauty.

He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.

Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity.

Life had stepped into the place of theory.