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.

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

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People are so like their first mother Eve: what they are given doesn't take their fancy. The serpent is forever enticing them to come to him, to the tree of mystery. They must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them.

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Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.

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He filled a shelf with a small army of books and read and read; but none of it made sense. .. They were all subject to various cramping limitations: those of the past were outdated, and those of the present were obsessed with the past.

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Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

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Play interests me very much," said Hermann: "but I am not in the position to sacrifice the necessary in the hope of winning the superfluous.

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..depression still kept guard on him, and chased after him like a shadow - or like a faithful wife.

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A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

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It's a lucky man who leaves early from life's banquet, before he's drained to the dregs his goblet - full of wine; yes, it's a lucky man who has not read life's novel to the end, but has been wise enough to part with it abruptly - like me with my Onegin.

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