Men make love more intensely at 20, but make love better, however, at 30.

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

I cannot live one day without love.

I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that's his.

[On Peter III:] He did not have a bad heart; but a weak man usually has not.

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.

If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off.