“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

“To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.”

“There is only one enduring happiness in life — to live for others.”

“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”

“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”

“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing — and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.”

“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”

“No doubt the reason is that character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

“Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.”

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”