“Break what must be broken, once for all, that's all, and take the suffering on oneself.”

“Can I possibly not understand myself that I'm a lost man? But--why can't I resurrect? Yes! it only takes being calculating and patient at least once in your life and--that's all! It only takes being steadfast at least once, and in an hour I can change my whole destiny!”

“Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.”

“To confess one's guilt and one's original sin is little, very little; one must wean oneself away from them completely. And that takes more than a little time.”

“We must name the eminent and fascinating Prince N. - once the vanquisher of female hearts all over Europe.”

“We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it's one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner. and that's all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that.”

“one must first learn to live oneself before one blames others”