Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism.

When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to build them; others should be rational enough to yield to them.

Philosophy is overwhelmingly complicated, its procedure depressingly slow.

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded as obsolete.

With the abolition of otium and of the ego no aloof thinking is left. ... Without otium philosophical thought is impossible, cannot be conceived or understood.

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time.

The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.

Trouble is a sieve through which we sift our acquaintances. Those too big to pass through are our friends.

In our circle, stress was a valuable status marker: I stress, therefore I am.

There's nothing more exciting than ideas.

Here's to one of the most beautiful kind thoughtful people I have ever known . . . You are getting more like me every day.

I don't believe in social equality, and they know it.

I am joining the government not from the academic position but from St. Petersburg city council.

Fiction is a sort of inter-human magic, allowing you to travel into a scene and feel it tingle on your skin.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

One thing we know for sure is that change is certain, progress is not.

My computer is a very complex gadget and it was designed by many designers, so why must the universe have only a single designer and not many designers?