“Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, ...”

“You see, wisdom does not come with grey hairs.”

“Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of...”

“A word aptly uttered or written cannot be cut away by an axe.”

“Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.”

“To what nadir of paltriness , pettiness, and squalor a man can sink! How could he change so! But is this really true to life? ---It is, it's all true to life, for anything can happen to a man. Your...”

“Of course it would be hard. But I remembered what my nurseryman grandfather used to say when I didnt want to go to school: half the work in the world was done by people who didnt feel so good today.”

“I've never minded it," he went on. "Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not truly be lost if one knew one's own heart. But I fear I may be lost without knowing yours.”

“There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison”

“To be of value to humanity, start by thinking for yourself.”

“Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.”

“The General belonged to the learned type of military men who believed that liberal and humane views can be reconciled with their profession. But being by nature a kind and intelligent man, he soon ...”