Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.
The more cultured a man, the less fortunate he is.
Brevity - the sister of talent.
There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
It's not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.
In all the universe nothing remains permanent and unchanged but the spirit.
Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.
In short stories it is better to say not enough than to say too much, because, because--I don't know why.
There is nothing more vulgar than a petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue.
Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.
An actress without talent, forty years old, ate a partridge for dinner, and I felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than the actress.
Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.
Common hypocrites pass themselves off as doves; political and literary hypocrites pose as eagles. But don't be fooled by their eagle-like appearance. These are not eagles, but rats or dogs.
Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.
The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can't return even if it wants to.
Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.
If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.
He who doesn't know how to be a servant should never be allowed to be a master; the interests of public life are alien to anyone who is unable to enjoy others' successes, and such a person should never be entrusted with public affairs.
Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self.
Man will become better when you show him what he is like.
If you cry 'forward', you must without fail make plain in what direction to go.
What must human beings be, to destroy what they can never create?
The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.
When describing nature, a writer should seize upon small details, arranging them so that the reader will see an image in his mind after he closes his eyes. For instance: you will capture the truth of a moonlit night if you'll write that a gleam like starlight shone from the pieces of a broken bottle, and then the dark, plump shadow of a dog or wolf appeared. You will bring life to nature only if you don't shrink from similes that liken its activities to those of humankind.
Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it is clear and does not detain one's attention. On the other hand, it is difficult to figure out and hard on the brain if I write: "The tall, narrow-chested man of medium height and with a red beard sat down on the green grass that had already been trampled down by the pedestrians, sat down silently, looking around timidly and fearfully." The brain can't grasp all that at once, and art must be grasped at once, instantaneously.
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