To strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering -- that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead.

The Russian soul is a dark place.

In summer, intolerable closeness; in winter, unendurable cold. All the floors were rotten. Filth on the floors an inch thick; one could slip and fall.

Just take a look around you: Blood is flowing in rivers and in such a jolly way you’d think it was champagne.

Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?

The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it.

Filled with rapture, his soul yearned for freedom, space, vastness. Over him the heavenly dome, full of quiet, shining stars, hung boundlessly. From the zenith to the horizon the still-dim Milky Way stretched its double strand. Night, fresh and quiet, almost unstirring, enveloped the earth. The white towers and golden domes of the church gleamed in the sapphire sky. The luxuriant autumn asleep till morning. The silence of the earth seemed to merge with the silence of the heavens and the mystery of the earth touched the mystery of the stars.