People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they do the emptiness of whichever new entertainment attracts them.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.

People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul

excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous

I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?

Reason unites us, not only with our contemporaries, but with men who lived two thousand years before us, and with those who will live after us.

The military world is characterized by the absence of freedom - in other words, a rigorous discipline-enforced inactivity, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness.