I leaf through the ancient philosophers and find my newest discoveries there.

I am deeply convinced that God is present both in the lives of every person and also in the lives of entire nations.

The one and only substitute for experience which we have not ourselves had is art, literature. We have been given a miraculous faculty: Despite the differences of language, customs and social structure we are able to communicate life experience from one whole nation to another, to communicate a difficult national experience many decades long which the second of the two has never experienced.

The heart senses who is friend and who is no friend.

Boris Yeltsin's period was characterized by a no less irresponsible attitude to people's lives, but in other ways. In his haste to have private rather than state ownership as quickly as possible, Yeltsin started a mass, multi-billion-dollar fire sale of the national patrimony. Wanting to gain the support of regional leaders, Yeltsin called directly for separatism and passed laws that encouraged and empowered the collapse of the Russian state. This deprived Russia of its historical role for which it had worked so hard, and lowered its standing in the international community.

... but it is human to be outraged by injustice, even to the point of courting destruction!

Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.