years
and produced nothing good, gave the world only scholars as untalented
and as narrow-minded as himself. At night he secretly bound
books--that was his true vocation: in that he was an artist and felt
the joy of it. There came to him a bookbinder, who loved learning and
studied secretly at night.

* * * * *

But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster.

* * * * *

Keep to the right, you of the yellow eye!

* * * * *

Do you want to eat? No, on the contrary.

* * * * *

A pregnant woman with short arms and a long neck, like a kangaroo.

* * * * *

How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not
concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their
marvelous works.

* * * * *

To demand that the woman one loves should be pure is egotistical: to
look for that in a woman which I have not got myself is not love, but
worship, since one ought to love one's equals.

* * * * *

The so-called pure childlike joy of life is animal joy.

* * * * *

I cannot bear the crying of children, but when my child cries, I don't
hear.

* * * * *

A schoolboy treats a lady to dinner in a restaurant. He has only one
rouble, twenty kopecks. The bill comes to four roubles thirty kopecks.
He has no money and begins to cry. The proprietor boxes his ears. He
was talking to the lady about Abyssinia.

* * * * *

A man, who, to judge from his appearance, loves nothing but sausages
and sauerkraut.

* * * * *

We judge human activities by their goal; that activity is great of
which the goal is great.

* * * * *

You drive on the Nevski, you look to the left on the Haymarket;
the clouds are the color of smoke, the ball of the setting sun
purple--Dante's hell!

* * * * *

His income is twenty-five to fifty thousand, and yet out of poverty he
shoots himself.

* * * * *

Terrible poverty, desperate situation. The mother a widow, her
daughter a very ugly girl. At last the mother takes courage and
advises the daughter to go on the street