by TPO
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[on individualism, integrity, freedom, and dignity:]
I have no faith in our hypocritical, false, hysterical, uneducated and lazy intelligentsia when they suffer and complain: their oppression comes from within. I believe in individual people. I see salvation in discrete individuals, intellectuals and peasants, strewn hither and yon throughout Russia. They have the strength, although there are few of them.
If you really think about it, everything is wonderful in this world, everything except for our thoughts and deeds when we forget about the loftier goals of existence, about our human dignity.
There are no small number of people in this world who, solitary by nature, always try to go back into their shell like a hermit crab or a snail.
Pharisaism, obtuseness and tyranny reign not only in the homes of merchants and in jails; I see it in science, in literature, and among youth. I consider any emblem or label a prejudice .... My holy of holies is the human body, health, intellect, talent, inspiration, love and the most absolute of freedoms, the freedom from force and falsity in whatever forms they might appear.
[on leaders:]
He who doesn't know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others' successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.
Despicable means used to achieve laudable goals render the goals themselves despicable.
Hypocrisy is a revolting, psychopathic state.
[on conscience and sensibilities or the lack of them:]
A good person will feel guilty even before a dog.
When a person doesn't understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn't search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn't understand.
A man who doesn't drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man.
Do you remember you shot a seagull? A man came by chance, saw it and destroyed it, just to pass the time.
A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.
[on legacy and wisdom:]
For the salvation of his soul the Muslim digs a well. It would be a fine thing if each of us were to leave behind a school, or a well, or something of the sort, so that life would not pass by and retreat into eternity without a trace.
Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.
I would love to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche on a train or boat and to talk with him all night. Incidentally, I don't consider his philosophy long-lived. It is not so much persuasive as full of bravura.
[on wealth and happiness:]
Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is.
Comfort and convenience possess a magical power; little by little they suck in even people with strong wills.
The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.
The unhappy are egotistical, base, unjust, cruel, and even less capable of understanding one another than are idiots. Unhappiness does not unite people, but separates them.
[on simplicity:]
There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.
The problem is that we attempt to solve the simplest questions cleverly, thereby rendering them unusually complex. One should seek the simple solution.
[on greed and limitations:]
The bourgeoisie loves so-called "positive" types and novels with happy endings since they lull one into thinking that it is fine to simultaneously acquire capital and maintain one's innocence, to be a beast and still be happy.
When you live on cash, you understand the limits of the world around which you navigate each day. Credit leads into a desert with invisible boundaries.
[on death:]
Death is terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying to find out that you are going to live forever and never die.
Death can only be profitable: there's no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.
[on the worst dangers to man:]
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
There is nothing more vapid than a philistine petty bourgeois existence with its farthings, victuals, vacuous conversations, and useless conventional virtue.
There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.
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