“For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?”

“...if there really is some day discovered a formula for all our desires and caprices - that is, an explanation of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case and in another and so on, that is a real mathematical formula - then, most likely, man will at once cease to feel desire, indeed, he will be certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ-stop or something of that sort; for what is a man without desires, without freewill and without choice, if not a stop in an organ?”

“Two times two will be four even without my will. Is that what you call man's free will?”

“Neither man nor nation can exist without a sublime idea.”

“. . . finally, I couldn't imagine how I could live without books, and I stopped dreaming about marrying that Chinese prince. . . .”

“But gamblers know how a man can sit for almost twenty-four hours at cards, without looking to right, or to left.”

“Eh, brother, but nature has to be corrected and guided, otherwise we'd all drown in prejudices. Without that there wouldn't be even a single great man.”