I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like. But i do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.

All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.

Belonging to oneself--the whole essence of life lies in that.

Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.

Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!

He went to bed early, but could not fall asleep. He was haunted by sad and gloomy reflections about the inevitable end- death. These thoughts were familiar to him, many times had he turned them over this way and that, first shuddering at the probability of annihilation, then welcoming it, almost rejoicing in it. Suddenly a peculiarly familiar agitation took possession of him... He mused awhile, sat down at the table, and wrote down the following lines in his sacred copy-book, without a single correction.

A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.