It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes.

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.

The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

In difficult circumstances always act on first impressions.

The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.

Pierre looked into the sky, into the depths of the retreating, twinkling stars. "And all this is mine, and all this is in me, and all this is me!" thought Pierre. "And all this they've caught and put in a shed and boarded it up!