My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
Mikhail LermontovIf only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.
Mikhail LermontovI am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.
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