Don't force me into saying what I don't want to say, and what I won't say.

The temerity to believe in nothing.

However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of "indifferent" nature: they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.

So long as one's just dreaming about what to do, one can soar like an eagle and move mountains, it seems, but as soon as one starts doing it one gets worn out and tired.

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.

I must say, though, that a man who has staked his whole life on the card of a woman's love and who, when that card is trumped, falls to pieces and lets himself go to the dogs -- a fellow like that is not a man, not a male. You say he's unhappy -- you know best. But all the nonsense hasn't been taken out of him yet. I'm sure he really believes he's a smart fellow just because he reads that rag Galignani and saves a muzhik from a flogging once a month.

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.