will, like myself, turn to dust?  It were better I had never been born or were a stone, to which God has given neither eyes nor thoughts.  In order to tire out my body by nightfall, all day yesterday, like a mere workman I carried marble to the temple; but now the night has come and I cannot sleep ...  I’ll go and lie down.  Phorses told me that if one imagines a flock of sheep running and fixes one’s attention upon it, the mind gets confused and one falls asleep, I’ll do it ...(exit).]

* * * * *

Ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles.  But don’t be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance.  They are not eagles, but rats or dogs.

* * * * *

Those who are more stupid and more dirty than we are called the people.  The administration classifies the population into taxpayers and non-taxpayers.  But neither classification will do; we are all the people and all the best we are doing is the people’s work.

* * * * *

If the Prince of Monaco has a roulette table, surely convicts may play at cards.

* * * * *

Iv. (Chekhov’s brother Ivan) could philosophize about love, but he could not love.

* * * * *

Aliosha:  “My mind, mother, is weakened by illness and I am now like a child:  now I pray to God, now I cry, now I am happy.”

* * * * *

Why did Hamlet trouble about ghosts after death, when life itself is haunted by ghosts so much more terrible?

* * * * *

Daughter:  “Felt boots are not the correct thing.”

Father:  “Yes they are clumsy, I’ll have to get leather ones.”  The father fell ill and his deportation to Siberia was postponed.

Daughter:  “You are not at all ill, father.  Look, you have your coat and boots on....”

Father:  “I long to be exiled to Siberia.  One could sit somewhere by the Yenissey or Obi river and fish, and on the ferry there would be nice little convicts, emigrants....  Here I hate everything:  this lilac tree in front of the window, these gravel paths....”

* * * * *

A bedroom.  The light of the moon shines so brightly through the window that even the buttons on his night shirt are visible.

* * * * *

A nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog....

* * * * *

A certain Councillor of State, looking at a beautiful landscape, said:  “What a marvelous function of nature!” From the note-book of an old dog:  “People don’t eat slops and bones which the cooks throw away.  Fools!”

* * * * *

He had nothing in his soul except recollections of his schooldays.