Most people only do what they are asked to do; success comes to those who do a little more.

One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room.

Not greeting people isn't enough. One also doesn't greet people one doesn't know.

The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one's own.

Progress, under whose feet the grass mourns and the forest turns into paper from which newspaper plants grow, has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.