Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I was not born to amuse the Tsars.
Write for pleasure and publish for money.
Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.
Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.
Unrequited love is not an affront to man but raises him.
I want to understand you, I study your obscure language.
My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you.
Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.
Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry.
Habit is Heaven's own redress: it takes the place of happiness.
Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane.
A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.
Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.
I am married and happy. My only wish is that nothing will change.
Thus people--so it seems to me-- Become good friends from sheer ennui.
With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm.
Please, never despise the translator. He's the mailman of human civilization.
As long as there is one heart on Earth where I still live, my memory will not die.
If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.
My dreams, my dreams! What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth?
I do not like Moscow life. You live here not as you want to live, but as old women want you to.
It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.
Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.
In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he.
Moscow... how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts! What store of riches it imparts!
Cabbage soup and barley. They're Russia's national food. Both excellent in their way, but a shade monotonous.
Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief - your time for joy will come, believe me.
Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.
Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.
Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)
Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.
Sad that our finest aspiration, Our freshest dreams and meditations, In swift succession should decay, Like Autumn leaves that rot away.
A man who's active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what's known to be decisive? Custom is despot of mankind.
Then came a moment of renaissance, I looked up - you again are there, A fleeting vision, the quintessence Of all that`s beautiful and rare.
Play interests me very much," said Hermann: "but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.
I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.
To love all ages yield surrender; But to the young it's raptures bring A blessing bountiful and tender- As storms refresh the fields of spring.
Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather of mind got clarity new-found; now free, I once more weave together emotion, thought, and magic sound.
The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely, In the flattering toils of philandery.
'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time! For rest the heart is aching; Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking, Fragments of being, while together you and I, Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.
It's a lucky man, a very lucky man, who is committed to what he believes, who has stifled intellectual detachment and can relax in the luxury of his emotions - like a tipsy traveller resting for the night at wayside inn.
I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul The former love has never gone away, But let it not recall to you my dole; I wish not sadden you in any way. I loved you silently, without hope, fully, In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain; I loved you so tenderly and truly, As let you else be loved by any man.
I loved you; even now I may confess, Some embers of my love their fire retain; But do not let it cause you more distress, I do not want to sadden you again. Hopeless and tongue tied, yet I loved you dearly With pangs the jealous and the timid know; So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely, I pray God grant another love you so.
I have outlasted all desire, My dreams and I have grown apart; My grief alone is left entire, The gleamings of an empty heart. The storms of ruthless dispensation Have struck my flowery garland numb, I live in lonely desolation And wonder when my end will come. Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted By tardy winter's whistling chill, A single leaf which has outlasted Its season will be trembling still.
I've lived to bury my desires and see my dreams corrode with rust now all that's left are fruitless fires that burn my empty heart to dust. Struck by the clouds of cruel fate My crown of Summer bloom is sere Alone and sad, I watch and wait And wonder if the end is near. As conquered by the last cold air When Winter whistles in the wind Alone upon a branch that's bare A trembling leaf is left behind.
There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended - Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord, Put me to witness much for many years, And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk, Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp, And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.
But even friendship like our heroes' Exist no more; for we've outgrown All sentiments and deem men zeroes-- Except of course ourselves alone. We all take on Napoleon's features, And millions of our fellow creatures Are nothing more to us than tools... Since feelings are for freaks and fools. Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions And on the whole despised mankind, Yet wasn't, like so many, blind; And since each rule permits exceptions, He did respect a noble few, And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.