How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how difficult in real life! - Anton Chekhov

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.

That can not possibly be, because it could never possibly be.

[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh.