“Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all”

“...the majority were of the species who, all the world over, look on the world and at everything that goes on in it and merely scratch their noses.”

“Ала мъдър е оня, който не се гнуси от никой характер и като втренчи в него изпитателен поглед, опознае го чак до първичните му причини. Бързо се променя всичко у човека; докато се обърнеш, току видиш, че се появил вътре в него страшен червей, който самовластно обръща към себе си всички жизнени сокове.”

“Well, so that's the prosecutor! He lived and lived, and then died! And they will say in the papers that he died to the regret of his staff and all mankind, a respected citizen, a rare father, a model husband, and they will write a lot more stuff and nonsense about him; they will add, maybe, that he was mourned by widows and orphans; but if one were to investigate the matter thoroughly, it will emerge that he had nothing to him except his bushy eyebrows.”

“Wherever in life it may be, whether amongst its tough, coarsely poor, and untidily moldering mean ranks, or its monotonously cold and boringly tidy upper classes, a man will at least once meet with a phenomenon which is unlike anything he has happened to see before, which for once at least awakens in him a feeling unlike those he is fated to feel all his life. Wherever, across whatever sorrow sour life is woven of, a resplendent joy will gaily race by, just as a splendid carriage with golden harness, picture-book horses, and a shining brilliance of glass sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly goes speeding by some poor, forsaken hamlet that has never seen anything but a country cart, and for a long time the muzhiks stand gaping open-mouthed, not putting their hats back on, though the wondrous carriage has long since sped away and vanished from sight.”

“However stupid a fool's words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.”

“You can do anything and smash anything in the world with a kopeck.”