Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.

Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.

In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly obedient to its own laws, it doesn't know art, just as it doesn't know freedom, just as it doesn't know goodness.

People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.

We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.

Nature creates while destroying, and doesn't care whether it creates or destroys as long as life isn't extinguished, as long as death doesn't lose its rights.

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don't notice whether it's passing quickly or slowly.

One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.

Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.

A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.

Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this - Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.

Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?

Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

Women... can't live with 'em... can't shoot 'em.

There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.

I agree with no one's opinion. I have some of my own.

Whatever a person may pray for that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this Almighty God grant that two times two not equal four.

Illness isn't the only thing that spoils the appetite.

Miserable person lives without ideals

In his heart he was highly delighted with his friend's suggestion, but he thought it a duty to conceal his feeling. He was not a nihilist for nothing!

But I think that I have already been moving too long in a sphere which is not my own. Flying fishes can hold out for a time in the air, but soon they must splash back into the water; allow me, too, to paddle in my own element.

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: great God, grant that twice two be not four.

It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

I came from poverty and was part of those circumstances.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

Historical methodology, as I see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances.

Planets are too dim to be detected with existing equipment, far away, except in these very special circumstances where they're seen by their gravitational effect.

Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.

A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.

Let everyone regulate his conduct... by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by others.

Until fighting ends and there are conditions, which allow the free expression of will by the people, there can be no elections and elections are not held in these circumstances anywhere in the world.

You mustn't forget the circumstances I have been brought up in, the little education I have had.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

To know all about anything is to know how to deal with it under all circumstances.

I do not pretend to write much of a letter. You know under what circumstances I am writing.

Instead of focusing on that circumstances that you cannot change - focus strongly and powerfully on the circumstances that you can.

It may be an extreme example brought about by abnormal circumstances - but the criteria of human rights kick in, surely, precisely when the conditions are extreme and the situation is abnormal.

Circumstances don't make a person; they reveal him or her.