The more debris there is the more it will show the governor's activity.

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.

How much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners.

In the course of reading he [Alexander Pushkin] became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading was over he uttered in a voice full of sorrow: "Goodness, how sad is our Russia!"

I saw that I'd get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.

As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?