Cabbage soup and barley. They're Russia's national food. Both excellent in their way, but a shade monotonous.

Solitude sometimes is best society.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.

You can make hell out of heaven and heaven out of hell. It's all in the mind.

Where no hope is left, is left no fear.

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.

Contemplation is wisdom's best nurse.

Necessity and chance Approach not me, and what I will is fate.

He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.

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

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

Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family.

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

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.

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

Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.

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