Humiliate the reason and distort the soul.
Russians alone are able to combine so many opposites in themselves at one and the same time.
A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.
Right attitudes produces right action
I think that if one is faced by inevitable destruction -- if a house is falling upon you, for instance -- one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may . . .