Ivan Kavanagh

“Despite the best efforts of people congregating in hundreds of thousands on one small spot to disfigure the land they had squeezed on to, despite their clogging the land with stones to make sure nothing could grow, despite their elimination of every last grass shoot, despite the fumes from coal and oil, despite the lopping of trees and the driving out of animals and birds, spring was still spring, even in the city.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection

“People believe only in fame and do not understand that there might be among them some Napoleon, who has never commanded a single company of chasseurs, or another Descartes, who has not published a single line in the Moscow Telegraph. However, our respect for fame may well come from vanity: our own voice, too, goes into the making of fame.”
― Alexander Pushkin, Novels, Tales, Journeys: The Complete Prose of Alexander Pushkin

“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Wipe your glasses with what you know.”
― James Joyce