'A joke is not an argument,' observed Darya Mihailovna, 'especially
when you descend to personal insult.'

'I don't know about truth, but I see speaking it does not answer,'
muttered Pigasov, and he turned angrily away.

And Rudin began to speak of pride, and he spoke well. He showed that
man without pride is worthless, that pride is the lever by which the
earth can be moved from its foundations, but that at the same time he
alone deserves the name of man who knows how to control his pride, as
the rider does his horse, who offers up his own personality as a
sacrifice to the general good.

'Egoism,' so he ended, 'is suicide. The egoist withers like a solitary
barren tree; but pride, ambition, as the active effort after
perfection, is the source of all that is great. . . . Yes! a man must
prune away the stubborn egoism of his personality to give it the right
of self-expression.'

'Can you lend me a pencil?' Pigasov asked Bassistoff.

Bassistoff did not at once understand what Pigasov had asked him.

'What do you want a pencil for?' he said at last

'I want to write down Mr. Rudin's last sentence. If one doesn't write
it down, one might forget it, I'm afraid! But you will own, a
sentence like that is such a handful of trumps.'