Good is an affirmation, evil is the denial of the aspiration to happiness.
Where desire no longer exists, man no longer exists.
Only husband and wife together form human reality; husband and wife together represent the existence of the nation, because their union is the source of the multitude, the source of the emergence of other people.
He who loves God can no longer love a man, because he has lost the understanding of what is human, and conversely, he who loves a man, truly and with all his heart, can no longer love god
Only he who admires his own beauty instead of human beauty in general is vain.
Goodness and morality are one and the same. Good, however, is only one who is good to others.
In religion, man has eyes not to see, to remain blind; he has reason not to think, to remain stupid.
Man is the beginning, middle and end of religion.
Man trusts his own strength only when he gets what he wants
Human nature manifests itself only in communication, in the communion of man with another man, in communion that is based on the reality of the distinction between "I" and "you".
The more limited a person's horizons, the less he knows history, nature and philosophy, the more sincerely he is attached to religion.
A clean conscience is nothing but the joy caused by another person; a burdened conscience is nothing more than the suffering and pain caused by another person.
To know man, you must love him.
Humor carries the soul over a precipice and teaches it to play with its pain.
In nature, opposite causes often produce the same effect: a horse falls from its feet both from standing still and from excessive walking.
Many quiet rivers begin with roaring waterfalls, but none of them end up flowing into the sea. But this stillness is often a sign of great power, even if hidden: the fullness and depth of feelings and thoughts do not permit angry impulses; the suffering and reveling soul convinces itself that it must be so, and knows that if there were no storms, the unceasing heat of the sun would dry it up.
On powerful thoughts, like pearls, words are strung.
Believe me: only there is happiness, where there is trust and love. Friends don't always support us. Joys are forgotten and sorrows remain.
Empty is the man who is full of himself.
Respect has limits, love does not.
Moving away from the conditioning of society and getting closer to nature, we involuntarily become children: everything we have acquired disappears from the soul, and it becomes again as it once was and as it will probably be again someday.
Nothing happens worse than death, and you can't avoid death.
Tongue and gold are our dagger and poison.
Alcoholism - this product of barbarism - keeps humanity tied to the gray and wild past, and exacts a monstrous tribute from it, devouring the youth, undermining the powers, overwhelming the energies, ruining the flower of the human race.
To me there is something attractive about a drunken man, and if I were in charge of an educational institution, I would certainly establish a department for the study of the psychology of drunkards, with compulsory practical hours.
If you think clearly, you will write clearly, if your idea is of value, then the essay will be of value.
If you lost the truth by hiding it, if you did not stand up and speak in a meeting, if you spoke but did not tell the whole truth - you betrayed the truth.
Life always gives man less than he asks of it.
Life is a strange thing. I thought a lot, I reflected a lot on it, but day by day, life seems to me more and more difficult to understand. Why do we have such a thirst for life? Life is a game from which man does not emerge victorious. To live is to work hard and suffer, until old age creeps up on others, and then we lay hands on the cold ashes of the cooled pyres. It's hard to live. The child is born in agony, in agony the old man breathes his last, and all our days are full of sorrow and care. And yet man walks into the open arms of death, unwillingly, stumbling, falling, looking back, fighting to the last moment. Only death is good. Life causes us suffering. But we love life and hate death. This is very strange!
The true purpose of man is to live, not to exist.