The best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking, while still in bed or while walking.

If I had any doubts at all about the justice of my dislike for Shakespeare, that doubt vanished completely. What a crude, immoral,vulgar, and senseless work Hamlet is. The whole thing is based on pagan vengeance; the only aim is to gather together as many effects as possible; there is no rhyme or reason about it.

Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression. Art is a human activity- that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are touched by these feelings and also experience them.

What is important is not the quantity of your knowledge but its quality. You can know many things without knowing the most important.

Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.

If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.

He felt that all his hitherto dissipated and dispersed forces were gathered and directed with terrible energy towards one blissful goal.