“Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.”

“He had felt proud and happy then, happy that she was his, proud of her grace and wifely carriage.”

“For he was a sincere man, and in spite of his superficial airs and graces, at root a humble one. And it is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely. ”

“there is scarce any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself”

“A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.”

“Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love with his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself. All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her.”