[On Gandhi.] Everything is wonderful about him, including Indian patriotism, which spoils everything.
La Rochefoucauld said that it is rare to meet a woman who does not have lovers and even more rarely one who has only one lover.
I don't know what my grandchildren will read. We had certain classics. Not long ago a gentleman came and asked me what I thought of Knut Hamsun. I haven't read it, I don't know. Now there are millions of such writers and an ocean of political specialists.
When you deal with what is infinitely large or infinitely small, you reach no result.
If Christ were to appear now, he would be asked for an autograph and nothing more.
For me, astronomy is a vain occupation, it means dealing with trifles. Schopenhauer showed that the external world is only a form of our imagination... Nowadays, any educated person knows that space and time do not exist. The world existed, but we cannot know how it came into being. Moses' story of the creation of the world is preferable to the Darwinian theory of evolution. Following this path, I cannot reach any conclusion, therefore the path is false.
Newspapers are harmful, they distract you from serious reading. I print what you don't need to know, all kinds of bad deeds, and the reader thinks to himself: "This is how good I am!"
The ideal is to love animals. Humans have many bad habits that animals do not have, but humans also have that thing that sets them above animals: boundless spiritual ideals.
I am horrified by the state of mind of the man who kills, the spiritual temptation to kill.
Happy are those who do not read newspapers, the illiterate, the uninvolved, for they have common sense. To feel fully satisfied, we need to live more simply. Reading newspapers has increased the number of fools. We must read the literature of the sixties. Compared to them, today's writers are small children.
The Chinese doctrine is difficult to penetrate, with the Japanese everything is clear, like with children.
It is difficult to determine the point at which dementia begins.
Good cannot be done through evil.
The feeling of shame is a limitation of the self. How not to value it! Man's clothing covers what is carnal and reveals what is inspired.
I'm reading Chernasevski, it's very interesting. He suffered from the mania of grandeur: "Darwin, Schopenhauer are fools"... Between us, he writes this in his correspondence with his sons, which is a shame that it is being published now. He was a smart man, but I didn't like him. I disliked him.
The main characteristic of crazy people is that they are confident. But it's natural, there are enough confident people. At first, they talk like people with chairs in their heads, and when they see that everyone is listening, they start saying what's on their minds.
The dreams of science. Children will be born scientifically. Scientific prejudice is repulsive... When you get into all of this you see that it is completely absurd. Science has become a commercial business, degrees are awarded. Just the fact that one teacher teaches the same course for ten years in a row... and it is not known why each teacher recommends his own book, stands it out among other books. (July 5)
In Kuprin, there is memory, selection of characteristic features and content. Chekhov is a great talent, but he has no content. The French write either trifles or something profound like Pascal, Hugo, Voltaire.
I feel that I am committing a great sin by encouraging writing, the most vain of occupations.
The prayer-request is an expression of weakness. "God help me! ", although you know that only you can help yourself. It is quite another thing to address God disinterestedly.
Pascal's musings are a péle-méle *; some are very weak, and next to them there are others very pregnant. For example, when he was attacked for writing against the Jesuits, Pascal said: "If I know that there are a hundred wells in the city, and one of them is poisoned, it is my duty to tell and show the poisoned one."
When you compare the idea of God in the peasant and the scientist, you see that the peasant accepts something inexplicable, whereas the scientist hides the inexplicable, and that is a big prejudice. The peasant is far above.
I can't stand Zhukovsky: for me, Zhukovsky to Pushkin is like Paul to the Gospel. I can't stand Pavel.
Out of faith, a man can calmly accept that his head be cut off, but it is also out of faith that he would cut off the head of his fellow man. A man with a rational conscience would not do the latter.
I am often reproached for two things: that I am proud of the title of earl, and that I deal with the collection of money from writing.
When I am asked what the maxim from the Talmud means: "Whether the pitcher falls on the stone, or the stone falls on the pitcher, it is always woe to the pitcher," I answer that this means that in the material world the grossest thing always wins.
Artists strive to please the lords, but all need art, even the people. And as much as I love Chopin, I will not say that Chopin represents the art of the future, that he will remain forever, because his art satisfies an exclusive, small audience.
In all religions there is a spiritual basis and an external, ritualistic perversion.
In life there is a huge amount of joinings and appropriations. Some typical features seem fundamental, and other characteristic features are added to them. That makes it easier for us to understand people.
The purpose of the artist is to unite the small features, scattered among an infinite number of people, in one person. When I was serious about writing, I tried to guess the type of man by a kind of direct feeling—what a difficult task! And now I don't think about the interpretation anymore, I see that they are only dreams.