“A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, should not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.”

“All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.”

“In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.”

“a man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.”

“I can only say that friendship should rise above man-made laws, which tend to be capricious by their very nature.”

“Man is not defiled by his impurities. It is the other man pointing out his impurities to him, whom he is defiled by. Is there anything anyone can do, to become righteous, anyway? God made us impure. If he had a problem with that, He would have made us gods, instead.”