He was the soul of politeness to everyone -- to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.

Oh youth, youth! You don't worry about anything; you seem to possess all the treasures of the universe--even sorrow gives you pleasure, even grief suits you.... And perhaps the whole secret of your charm lies not in your ability to do everything, but in your ability to think that you will do everything.

I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.

To tell about a drunken muzhik's beating his wife is incomparably harder than to compose a whole tract about the 'woman question.'

Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.