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Quotes by Russian Authors
"If a philosophic theory is once ruled out of court, no one can tell when it will appear again."
"All psychological research is completely barred by the interpretations of the psychoanalysts. Everything happens in the unconscious, and I don't know what this unconscious is."
"Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts."
"He was a crystal of morality among our scientists."
"Literature is always trying to show other parts of this immense universe in which we live. It's endless. I'm sure there will be other writers who will discover new worlds."
"And the existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life."
"You see, there's a theory current you're insane, or you lean strongly in that direction."
"The world believes all blondes are stupid and brunettes are smarter. Well, I disagree."
"I think that tennis is a lady's sport, so we should look out there like ladies."
"You don't understand, you fool' says Yegor, looking dreamily up at the sky. 'You've never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years... You just think I'm a mad person who has thrown his life away... Once the free spirit has taken hold of a man, there's no way of getting it out of him."
"Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a meat ax. All that is subtle in human psychology and in the structure of society (which is even more complex), all of this is reduced to crude economic processes. The whole created being-man-is reduced to matter. It is characteristic that Communism is so devoid of arguments that it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries. It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement."
"I believe that true beauty of chess is more than enough to satisfy all possible demands."
"I've never signed any contract and never received a cent from Iraq."
"He is not apprehended by reason, but by life."
"Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that's like supposing the same candle could last you all your life."
"When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt."
"Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin."
"Misery's fine - as long as you know you can get out of it when you want to."
"I still love to play chess. So I do not even spend a minute on the possibility to step back."
"To love someone means to see him as God intended him."
"To leave town, and the struggle and the swim of life, and go and hide yourself in a farmhouse is not life -- it is egoism, laziness; it is a kind of monasticism, but monasticism without action. A man needs, not six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth, all Nature, where in full liberty he can display all the properties and qualities of the free spirit."
"Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. But a breach of morality is the conscious choice of an action you know to be evil, or a willful evasion of knowledge, a suspension of sight and of thought. That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any break of morality."
"Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims- the welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent."
"The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks."
"This whole fuss did not only damage Fischer's image, but that of the USA as well. The way the Americans treated one of their most popular citizens did not make a positive impression worldwide."
"There was the scientific and technical progress which couldn't be predicted by the state."
"Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws."
"I want you to have this feeling too - it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom."
"The strength of the playing ability is much more important. Only if the strength of the opponent's playing ability is comparable, does the game develop."
"For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied... whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of."
"However, do you know what? I am convinced that fellows like me who live in dark cellars must be kept under restraint. They may be able to live in their dark cellars for forty years and never open their mouths, but the moment they get into the light of day and break out they may talk and talk and talk..."
"Many who have had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confuse it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination."
"I had to gain experience as I did not have a technical education."
"Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others."
"My manager wants me to dress like a nun and I want to dress like a teenager."
"His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another."
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