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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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.

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

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I was not born to amuse the Tsars.

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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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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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The less we love her when we woo her, The more we draw a woman in,

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Dearer to me than a host of base truths is the illusion that exalts.

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

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