الحياة الروحية تُعاش، لا تُلقن. وكسب الحياة يكون بخدمة الناس، لا يإعتزالهم. وفهم الكتاب المقدس هو بحرية العقل، ونقاء القلب، لا بالترديد الأعمى. - Leo Tolstoy

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them. If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question — in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible — is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.

If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.