“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, ...”

“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.”

“The human feelings, which had never been very deep in him, grew shallower every hour, and every day something more dropped away from the decrepit wreck.”

“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...”

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”