It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.

But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires.

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.