Even if the absence of government really did mean anarchy in a negative, disorderly sense - which is far from being the case - even then, no anarchical disorder could be worse than the position to which government has led humanity.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Don’t you know that you are all my life to me? ...But peace I do not know, and can’t give to you. My whole being, my love...yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune...or of happiness-what happiness!...Is it impossible?" Vronksy

The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn't gold