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Bread without love is like grass without salt -- the stomach may be filled, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
LEONID ANDREYEV, Anathema
Men are always murderers, and their calmness and generosity is the calmness of a well-fed animal, that knows itself out of danger.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Red Laugh
Death augments distance and dulls the memory. Death reconciles.
Only the footsteps of the blind are short, but their thoughts are long.
LEONID ANDREYEV, Anathema
Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.
LEONID ANDREYEV, "Lazarus"
The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Red Laugh
Born, the Man assumes the name and image of humanity, and becomes in all things like unto other men who dwell upon the earth. Their hard lot becomes his, and his, in turn, becomes the lot of all who shall come after him. Drawn on inexorably by time, it is not given him to see the next rung on which his faltering foot shall fall. Bounded in knowledge, it is not given him to foretell what each succeeding hour, what each succeeding minute, shall have in store for him. In blind nescience, in an agony of foreboding, in a whirl of hopes and fears, he completes the cycle of an iron destiny.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
Only the dead know the truth.
I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy -- what is it if not madness?
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Red Laugh
Don't laugh at the voice of the stars. They are far away, their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark.
LEONID ANDREYEV, He Who Gets Slapped
Man dies. Come from darkness, into darkness he returns, and is reabsorbed, without a trace left, into the illimitable void of time.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
All the evil that is tormenting the world seemed to him to be concentrated in a "red flower," in one red flower. It was but necessary to tear it down, and the incessant, heart-rending cries and moans which rise to the indifferent sky from all points of the earth, like its natural breathing, would be silenced. The evil of the world, he believed, lay in the evil will and in the madness of the people. They themselves were to blame for being unhappy, and they could be happy if they wished. This seemed so clear and simple that Max was dumfounded in his amazement at human stupidity. Humanity reminded him of a crowd huddled together in a spacious temple and panic-stricken at the cry of "Fire!"
LEONID ANDREYEV, "Love, Faith and Hope"
The papers are full of murders -- strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Red Laugh
Hitherto without being; hidden away in the womb of eternity; possessed neither of thought nor feeling; remote from the range of human ken -- the Man bursts, in some unknown manner, the bars of non-existence, and announces with a cry the beginning of his brief life. In the night of non-existence there bursts forth also a little candle, lit by an unseen hand. Mark well its flame: for it is the life of that Man.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
Who strikes man with love -- God or the Devil?
LEONID ANDREYEV, He Who Gets Slapped
Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
As we educate a child -- removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience -- we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence -- towards perfection.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
There is no beast more cruel than man.
See thou, whatsoever be thy name -- whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me!
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
When a man has the rope about his neck, you don't ask him about his health!
LEONID ANDREYEV, He Who Gets Slapped
To succeed in life one needs two things -- influence and a lucky star.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet.
Do you not see the hand of God, which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the mountains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory?
LEONID ANDREYEV, He Who Gets Slapped
When a woman weeps, it is a man's shame.
LEONID ANDREYEV, The Life of Man
It's a powerful instrument, dynamite -- nothing like it for a convincing argument!
The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if you destroyed it today, it would rise up again the same as before.
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