64 Quotes by Leonid Andreyev

The fear of death came over him gradually. It was as if somebody were striking his heart a powerful blow with the fist from below.

Death was something inevitable and even unimportant, of which it was not worth while to think; but for a man in prison, before his execution, to be left without tobacco—that was altogether unbearable.

What do those people think? That there is nothing more terrible than death. They themselves have invented Death, they are themselves afraid of it, and they try to frighten us with it.

But, as is sometimes the case with good people, he was perhaps liked more for this little foible than for his good qualities.

Yes, I do read books but only for one purpose: to learn how to hate man and to hold him in contempt.

You love humanity and I detest it. At best I am indifferent to it. Let it live and not interfere with me.

I am not afraid of this devil!” he thought of Death. “I simply feel sorry for my life. It is a splendid thing, no matter what the pessimists say about it. What if they were to hang a pessimist? Ah, I feel sorry for life, very sorry!

Either you are all asses, or I am an ass,” he would declare seriously and even angrily. And all his friends as seriously declared: “You are an ass. We can tell by your voice.

Death was not there as yet, but life was there no longer,—there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without meaning,—something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was impossible to understand.