Maxim Gorky

With his own money a person can live as he likes—a ruble that’s your own is dearer than a brother.

Every new time will give its law.

What can you do by killing? Nothing. You kill one dog, the master buys another—that’s all there is to it.

Hunger can explain many acts. It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger.

Jail doesn't teach anyone to do good, nor Siberia, but a man—yes! A man can teach another man to do good—believe me!

Only mothers can think of the future—because they give birth to it in their children.

The Englishman walks before the law like a trained horse in the circus. He has the sense of legality in his bones, in his muscles.

A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy when work is a duty, life is slavery.

One has to be able to count if only so that at fifty one doesn't marry a girl of twenty.

Marriage to woman is just like jumping through a hole in the ice in winter. You do it once, and you remember it the rest of your life.

When one loves somebody, everything is clear—where to go, what to do—it all takes care of itself and one doesn’t have to ask anybody about anything.

In the carriages of the past you can’t go anywhere.

The proletarian state must bring up thousands of excellent ‘mechanics of culture’, ‘engineers of the soul’.

You must write for children in the same way you do for adults, only better.