Luxuries are easy to take up but very difficult to give up

There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.

God is necessary, and therefore must exist...But I know that he does not and cannot exist...Don't you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?

The Russian soul is a dark place.

Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything. Granted, granted I'm a babbler, a harmless, irksome babbler, as we all are. But what's to be done if the sole and express purpose of every intelligent man is babble--that is, a deliberate pouring from empty into void.

Never mind a little dirt, if the goal is splendid!

Believe to the end, even if all men went astray and you were left the only one faithful; bring your offering even then and praise God in your loneliness.