“All his life he had not planted one tree in his own garden, nor grown one blade of grass; and living among the living, he had not saved one fly; he had done nothing but destroy and ruin, and lie, lie. . . .” Gooseberries

Marriage may be compared to a cage: the birds outside despair to get in and those within despair to get out. Essays

They insist that an author should write in the strictest, purest and noblest language: in short, they expect the Russian language to drop from the clouds, already refined, and that it should come naturally to the lips, so that all they have to do is to open their mouth and stick out their tongue. It goes without saying, of course, that the feminine half of the human species is very wise; but it must be confessed that our respected readers are even wiser. Dead Souls

If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything The Castle