There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?
Mikhail LermontovMy whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
Mikhail LermontovAfraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there.
Mikhail LermontovI 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.
Mikhail Lermontov