From the self-confidence with which he spoke no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.

Do not be sad about what you do not have. Instead, be happy about what you do have. If you will be sad about what you don't have, you will not be happy about what you do have.

Beautiful as seemed mama's face, it became more lovely when she smiled and seemed to enliven everything about her.

Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. ~The Kreutzer Sonata

I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go on until you remember what was there before you were in the world.

But that's just the aim of civilization - to make everything a source of enjoyment.

It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.