“Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.”

Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane.

With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm.

Thus people–so it seems to me– Become good friends from sheer ennui.

Moscow, how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts! What store of riches it imparts!

Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.

If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.

Then came a moment of renaissance, I looked up – you again are there, A fleeting vision, the quintessence Of all that`s beautiful and rare.

Unrequited love is not an affront to man but raises him.

It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.

Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather of mind got clarity new-found; now free, I once more weave together emotion, thought, and magic sound.

I am married and happy. My only wish is that nothing will change.

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.

A man who’s active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what’s known to be decisive? Custom is despot of mankind.

To love all ages yield surrender; But to the young it’s raptures bring A blessing bountiful and tender- As storms refresh the fields of spring.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected.

Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.

In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.

By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.

It is a part of the nature of man to resist compulsion.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.