At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on.

As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.

I saw that I'd get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.

The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.

It's the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable.

Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.