Nikolai Karamzin. Letters of a Russian traveler (№ 122223)

I love big cities and the multitude, in which a person may be remote, rather than in the smallest company; I like to look at thousands of strangers, which, like Chinese shadows, flashed in front of me, leaving the nerves of light, barely perceptible impressions; love lost soul in the diversity of existing objects at me and would suddenly turn to himself, to think that I'm the focus of the moral world, the object of all his movements, or a speck of dust, which with myriad other atoms are drawn in a whirlwind of predefined cases. My philosophy is strengthened, so to speak, a view of human vanity; on the contrary, being one with him, often find their thoughts on the mundane nonentities. The moral light, like celestial bodies, has two forces: one involves our heart to himself, and with the other pushes him away: first feel more alive in solitude, between other people - but not everyone is required to have my feelings.