In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with humans it is the other way around: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar. – Anton Chekhov
The wealthy are always surrounded by hangers-on science and art are as well. – Anton Chekhov
There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science. – Anton Chekhov
The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others. – Anton Chekhov
And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness. To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song. – Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), “Of Reading and Writing,” Thus Spake Zarathus