ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

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

I do not like Moscow life. You live here not as you want to live, but as old women want you to.

From a poetic point of view this is all very fine, but it is nevertheless essential that the Poles should be smothered.

Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

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.

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

I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul The former love has never gone away, But let it not recall to you my dole; I wish not sadden you in any way. I loved you silently, without hope, fully, In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain; I loved you so tenderly and truly, As let you else be loved by any man.

I want to understand you, I study your obscure language.

I loved you; even now I may confess, Some embers of my love their fire retain; But do not let it cause you more distress, I do not want to sadden you again. Hopeless and tongue tied, yet I loved you dearly With pangs the jealous and the timid know; So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely, I pray God grant another love you so.

'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time! For rest the heart is aching; Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking, Fragments of being, while together you and I, Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.

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.

Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)

I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.

My dreams, my dreams! What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth?

My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you.

But even friendship like our heroes' Exist no more; for we've outgrown All sentiments and deem men zeroes-- Except of course ourselves alone. We all take on Napoleon's features, And millions of our fellow creatures Are nothing more to us than tools... Since feelings are for freaks and fools. Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions And on the whole despised mankind, Yet wasn't, like so many, blind; And since each rule permits exceptions, He did respect a noble few, And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.

Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry.

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

I was not born to amuse the Tsars.

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.

It's a lucky man, a very lucky man, who is committed to what he believes, who has stifled intellectual detachment and can relax in the luxury of his emotions - like a tipsy traveller resting for the night at wayside inn.