Mikhail Lermontov

Farewell, unwashed Russia, Land of slaves, land of masters, And you, blue uniforms, And you, people, devoted to them. Perhaps beyond the wall of the Caucasus, I will hide from your pashas,

In people's eyes I read Pages of malice and sin.

No, it is not you I love so ardently, The glitter of your beauty is not for me: I love in you my past suffering And my perished youth.

What good are the passions? For sooner or later their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up; And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard is stupid and empty — a joke.

And I, as I lived, in an alien land Will die a slave and an orphan.

To the earth I gave the earthly tribute Of love, hopes, good and evil; I am ready to begin another life, I am silent and wait: the time has come; I shall leave no brother in this world, And dark and cold embrace

For what did the creator prepare me, Why did he so terribly contradict The hopes of my youth?...

I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectator Of my triumph or my doom...

I do not love you; the former dream Of passions and torments has passed by; But your image in my soul Is still alive, although it is powerless; Although I abandon myself to other dreams, I still cannot forget it;

The chain of young life is broken, The journey is ended, the hour has struck, it is time to leave, Time to go where there is no future, No past, no eternity, no years; Where there are no expectations, no passions, No bitter tears, no fame, …

Alone, as before, in the universe Without hope and without love!..

I want to reconcile myself with heaven, I want to love, I want to pray, I want to believe in good.

And everything that he saw before him He despised or hated.

What is this eternity to me without you? What is the infinity of my domains? Empty ringing words, A spacious temple — without a divinity!

...man, this ruler over general evil, With a perfidious heart, with a lying tongue...

You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand... but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.

Women! Women! Who can understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and allure, but the tone of their voice repels.

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.

Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.

Women love only those whom they do not know!

Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.

The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written …

In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.