“I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays & the soft tender gentle memories that come with them...’-Father Zossima”

“But it is possible, it is possible: the old grief, by a great mystery of human life, gradually passes into quiet, tender joy; instead of young, ebullient blood comes a mild, serene old age: I bless the sun's rising each day and my heart sings to it as before, but now I love its setting even more, its long slanting rays, and with them quiet, mild, tender memories, dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life--and over all is God's truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!”

“The old grief of the great mystery of human life gradually passes into a quiet, tender joy; in place of the boiling blood of youth there comes a meek serene old age: I bless the daily rising of the sun, and my heart sings to it as it did of old, but now I am more enamored of its setting, its long, oblique rays, and the quiet, gentle, tender memories that accompany them, the dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life--and above it all the truth of God, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!”

“No, it is not a commonplace, sir! If up to now, for example, I have been told to 'love my neighbor,' and I did love him, what came of it?. . . What came of it was that I tore my caftan in two, shared it with my neighbor, and we were both left half naked, in accordance with the Russian proverb which says: If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them. But science says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest. If you love only yourself, you will set your affairs up properly, and your caftan will also remain in one piece. And economic truth adds that the more properly arranged personal affairs and, so to speak, whole caftans there are in society, the firmer its foundations are and the better arranged its common cause. It follows that by acquiring for everyone, as it were, and working so that my neighbor will have something more than a torn caftan, not from private, isolated generosities now, but as a result of universal prosperity.”

“Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.”

“I was twenty-four, but even then I led the gloomy, disorganized, solitary existence of a recluse. I stayed away from people, avoided even speaking to them, and kept more and more to my hole.”

“There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for later years than some good memory, especially a menory connected with childhood, with home. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if we have only one good memory left in our hearts..even that may sometime be the means of saving us.”