No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead."

Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.

"Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere."

"If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?"

"People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding."