Russian words often carry a weathered tenderness: irony sharpened by cold, compassion stretched by history. Proverbs and lines balance stoic patience with sudden, disarming passion; they measure time not by minutes but by winters and farewells. Conscience argues with power; love is both salvation and burden; truth consoles and wounds. Laughter comes dry and warm, poured like tea in a crowded kitchen. Images of birch, bread, and road, moral weight packed into simple nouns, and a stubborn hope that survives its own skepticism.
"The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament"
"The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits"
"Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it"
"A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about"
"You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings"
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men"
