What a force is laughter.

Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.

[He] understood the people in a new way...The people is not everyone who speaks our language, nor yet the elect marked by the fiery stamp of genius. Not by birth, not by the work of one's hands, not by the wings of education is one elected into the people. But by one's inner self. Everyone forges his inner self year after year. One must try to temper, to cut, to polish one's soul so as to become a human being. And thereby become a tiny particle of one's own people.

We never know beforehand how new posts or new work will change us.

One should not ascribe the evil deeds of individual leaders or political regimes to an innate fault of the Russian people and their country.

As for Europe, its claims towards Russia are fairly transparently based on fears about energy, unjustified fears at that.

We have arrived at an intellectual chaos.