The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.
Maxim GorkyWhat I'd like is to meet a man I could take off my hat to and say: "Thank you for having got born, and the longer you live the better.
Maxim GorkyKeep reading books, but remember that a book’s only a book, and you should learn to think for yourself.
Maxim GorkySilence is terrible and painful only to those who have said all and have nothing more to speak of; but to those who never had anything to say— to them silence is simple and easy.
Maxim GorkyWhat can you do by killing? Nothing. You kill one dog, the master buys another-that's all there is to it.
Maxim GorkyYou can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.
Maxim GorkyHunger can explain many acts. It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger.
Maxim GorkyWriters build castles in the air, the reader lives inside, and the publisher inns the rent.
Maxim GorkyWith his own money a person can live as he likes-a ruble that's your own is dearer than a brother.
Maxim GorkyTo speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.
Maxim GorkyWhen a woman gets married it is like jumping into a hole in the ice in the middle of winter: you do it once and you remember it the rest of your days.
Maxim GorkyThere is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he who gives alms. Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them.
Maxim GorkyTwo forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and science. Both are united in the book.
Maxim GorkyWe kill everybody, my dear. Some with bullets, some with words, and everybody with our deeds. We drive people into their graves, and neither see it nor feel it.
Maxim GorkyAll of us are pilgrims on this earth. I've even heard people say that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.
Maxim GorkyIf it is true that only misfortune can awaken a man's soul, it is a bitter truth, one that is hard to hear and accept, and it is only natural that many people deny it and say it is better for a man to live on in a trance than to wake up to torture.
Maxim GorkyJail doesn't teach anyone to do good, nor Siberia, but a man-yes! A man can teach another man to do good-believe me!
Maxim GorkyThe Englishman walks before the law like a trained horse in the circus. He has the sense of legality in his bones, in his muscles.
Maxim GorkyThe intelligentsia ...was kept busy embroidering white stitches on the philosophical and ecclesiastical vestments of the bourgeoisie - that old and filthy fabric besmeared with the blood of toiling masses.
Maxim GorkyThe illness of a doctor is always worse than the illnesses of his patients.The patients only feel, but the doctor, as well as feeling, has a pretty good idea of the destructive effect of the disease on his constitution.This is a case in which knowledge brings death nearer.
Maxim GorkyOne has to be able to count if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty.
Maxim GorkyHappiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
Maxim GorkyPolitics is something similar to the lower physiological functions, with the unpleasant difference that political functions are unavoidably carried out in public.
Maxim GorkyEverybody, my friend, everybody lives for something better to come. That's why we want to be considerate of every man - Who knows what's in him, why he was born and what he can do?
Maxim Gorky