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Quotes by Russian Authors
"We expect everything and are prepared for nothing."
"The path towards a free society has not been simple. There are tragic and glorious pages in our history."
"This is dreadful! Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses in himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity-that of sympathy and pity toward living creatures like himself-and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life!"
"Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he "lives" his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy."
"Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office. Aesop It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations."
"It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the way we look at the world. Both attitudes are within our power so that a man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and no one can stop him."
"Above all, avoid lying, especially lying to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and yourself: whatever strikes you as disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it.Avoid fear, too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love and don't be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion."
"Let Catholics build their own churches and works."
"People respected my experience, they hire me, they pay me what I am worth to coach their team."
"I don't know what being an Everest guide means. I am a coach, not a guide."
"Of course, peace treaties are very attractive to those who sign them. They strengthen one's prestige with the electorate. But the time will come when the names of these public figures will be erased from history. Nobody will remember them any longer. But the Western peoples will have to pay heavily for these overtrusting agreements."
"The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment."
"Human beings yield in many situations, even important and spiritual and central ones, as long as it prolongs one's well-being."
"Power is a poison well known for thousands of years. If only no one were ever to acquire material power over others! But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal. For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote."
"Literature has to serve as a moral control of politics."
"Each university should have a Young Scholars' Committee. I became the chairman of this Committee, and immediately it was permitted to have this plan officially adopted."
"Does it matter whether it was a dream or a reality, if the dream made known to me the truth?"
"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful."
"If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground.The Brothers KaramazovMitya (Dmitri) to Aloysha who visits him in prison, Book XI - Ivan, Chapter 4 - A Hymn and a Secret."
"Anna Petrovna: Kolya, my dearest, stay at home.Ivanov: My love, my unhappy darling, I beg you, don't stop me going out in the evenings. It's cruel and unjust on my part, but let me commit that injustice. It's an agony for me at home. As soon as the sun disappears, my spirit begins to be weighed down by depression. What depression! Don't ask why. I myself don't know. I swear by God's truth I don't know. Here I'm in anguish, I go to the Lebedevs and there it's still worse; I return from there and here it's depression again, and so all night... Simply despair!"
"From the described experiment it is clear that the mere act of eating, the food even not reaching the stomach, determines the stimulation of the gastric glands."
"One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man."
"Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones."
"The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism."
"We all have an equal interest in stability and security throughout Europe. The years the OSCE has existed, and particularly this year, have given rise to great expectations and at the same time to powerful disappointments."
"The next war... may well bury Western civilization forever."
"The Bolsheviks started not just on the killing of private property; they were trying to abolish money itself."
"Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something."
"The picture which the philosopher draws of the world is surely not one in which every stroke is necessitated by pure logic."
"The whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life."
"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."
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