Sublime

If we’re to come to love a man, the man himself should stay hidden, because as soon as he shows his face—love vanishes.”

“Those innocent eyes slit my soul up like a razor,”

The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.

He prided himself on his ability to judge by appearances, a pardonable weakness in one who was already fifty—an age when an intelligent, well-to-do man of the world always starts to take himself seriously, sometimes even against his better judgement.

I don’t like falseness, fathers, I want the truth! And the truth is not in gudgeons, I’ve already declared as much! Father monks, why do you fast? Why do you expect a heavenly reward for that? For such a reward, I’ll go and start fasting, too! No, holy monk, try being virtuous in life, be useful to society without shutting yourself up in a monaster

you are an ascetic, a monk, a hermit! . . . A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned research — that’s where your spirit soars!