Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.

Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.

It is sad to see a young man's fondest hopes and dreams shattered when the rose-colured veil is plucked away and he sees the actions and feelings of men for what they are. But he still has the hope of replacing his old illusions with others, just as fleeting, but also just as sweet.

Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.

I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectatorOf my triumph or my doom.

I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer.

If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.