“He would shoot his adversary in a duel, and go against a bear if need be, and fight off a robber in the forest--all as successfully and fearlessly as L---n, yet without any sense of enjoyment, but solely out of unpleasant necessity, listlessly, lazily, even with boredom. Anger, of course, constituted a progress over L---n, even over Lermontov. There was perhaps more anger in Nikolai Vsevolodovich than in those two together, but this anger was cold, calm, and if one may put it so, reasonable, and therefore the most repulsive and terrible that can be.”

“The harmonious man, it needs to be said, hardly exists at all; out of many tens, even hundreds of thousands perhaps one or two at most are encountered, and even then in rather feeble versions.”

“I am sure that deep down Ikhmenev was in a state of turmoil and pain as he witnessed the tears and torment of his poor wife; I am sure it was more agonizing for him than for her - but he could not control himself. This is what happens sometimes even with the most kind-hearted of people, who are nevertheless weak-willed, and who, despite their kind-heartedness, are apt to get carried off into a state of ecstasy when unburdening themselves of their grief and anger, even at the expense of hurting someone innocent, more often than not someone who is dear to them.”

“There is no doubt that these legendary gentlemen were capable of experiencing, even to an intense degree, the sensation of fear--otherwise they would have been much calmer, and would ot have made the sense of danger into a necessity of their nature. No, but overcoming their own cowardice--that of course, was what tempted them. A ceaseless reveling in victory and the awareness that no one can be victorious over you--that was what attracted them.”

“It seems to me that if there were such a man, for example, as would seize a red-hot bar of iron and clutch it in his hand, with the purpose of measuring his strength of mind, and in the course of ten seconds would be overcoming the intolerable pain and would finally overcome it, this man, it seems to me, would endure something like what was experience now, in these ten seconds, by Nikolai Vsevolodovich.”

“There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both.”

“I will tell you that I am a child of this century, a child of disbelief and doubt. I am that today and will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet, God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly and more powerful than Christ.”