I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.

We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we're barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.

Tempered, gradual animation, the methodical restrain of sensations and energies, the equilibrium of sickness and health in each creature--this is nature's essence, its immutable law, this is what it's based on and what it adheres to.

It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.

Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we're absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.

I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.

Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love- where are you?