There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas.

Only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

Here my tears are falling, Nastenka. Let them flow, let them flow - they don't hurt anybody. They will dry Nastenka.

To cook your hare you must first catch it.

The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the miraculous also.

I have no self-respect. But can a man of acute sensibility respect himself at all?

... you can never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and mistress.