Alexander Pushkin
I do not like Moscow life. You live here not as you want to live, but as old women want you to.
I am married and happy. My only wish is that nothing will change.
It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.Collection: Dream
Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.Collection: Illusion
Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.Collection: Asking
Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief - your time for joy will come, believe me.Collection: Inspirational
Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Dream
I want to understand you, I study your obscure language.Collection: Want
As long as there is one heart on Earth where I still live, my memory will not die.Collection: Memories
The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely, In the flattering toils of philandery.Collection: Toil
Write for pleasure and publish for money.Collection: Writing
My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you.Collection: Whole Life
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.Collection: Love
If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.Collection: Flames
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.Collection: Believe
I was not born to amuse the Tsars.Collection: Born
With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm.Collection: Easier
Please, never despise the translator. He's the mailman of human civilization.Collection: Civilization
Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry.Collection: Inspirational
Unrequited love is not an affront to man but raises him.Collection: Unrequited Love
I have outlasted all desire, My dreams and I have grown apart; My grief alone is left entire, The gleamings of an empty heart. The storms of ruthless dispensation Have struck my flowery garland numb, I live in lonely desolation And wonder when my end will come. Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted By tardy winter's whistling chill, A single leaf which has outlasted Its season will be trembling still.Collection: Dream
Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.Collection: Glasses
Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.Collection: Littles
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.Collection: Pain
Moscow... how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts! What store of riches it imparts!Collection: Heart
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. Struck by the clouds of cruel fate My crown of Summer bloom is sere Alone and sad, I watch and wait And wonder if the end is near. As conquered by the last cold air When Winter whistles in the wind Alone upon a branch that's bare A trembling leaf is left behind.Collection: Summer
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.Collection: Sacrifice
In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Ideas
Thus people--so it seems to me-- Become good friends from sheer ennui.Collection: Good Friend
Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.Collection: Country
Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.Collection: Dance
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.Collection: Spring
My dreams, my dreams! What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth?Collection: Dream
'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.Collection: Heart
Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)Collection: Play
Sad that our finest aspiration, Our freshest dreams and meditations, In swift succession should decay, Like Autumn leaves that rot away.Collection: Dream
Cabbage soup and barley. They're Russia's national food. Both excellent in their way, but a shade monotonous.Collection: Russia
Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane.Collection: Wine
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.Collection: Hero
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.Collection: Fighting
There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended - Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord, Put me to witness much for many years, And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk, Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp, And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.Collection: Book