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Quotes by Russian Authors
"Satiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied."
"If you look for perfection, you'll never be content."
"It is here that we see the dawn of hope: for no matter how formidably Communism bristles with tanks and rockets, no matter what successes it attains in seizing the planet, it is doomed never to vanquish Christianity."
"The Russian people are suffering from economic fatigue and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world thinks the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken. The Russian Revolution is just beginning."
"Don't let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them."
"Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration."
"All history is one continuous pestilence. There is no truth and there is no illusion. There is nowhere to appeal and nowhere to go."
"The thoughts of a prisoner-they're not free either. They kept returning to the same things. A single idea keeps stirring. Would they feel that piece of bread in the mattress? Would he have any luck in the dispensary that evening? Would they out Buinovsky in the cells? And how did Tsezar get his hands on that warm vest?"
"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one."
"Russia also declared its independence. This was approved by the Supreme Soviet, and you know and remember that there was the Declaration on the Independence of Russia."
"And if it is a mystery, then we, too, had the right to preach mystery and to teach them that it is not the free choice of the heart that matters, and not love, but the mystery, which they must blindly obey, even setting aside their own conscience. And so we did. We corrected your deed and based it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And mankind rejoiced that they were once more led like sheep, and that at last such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much suffering, had been taken from their hearts."
"The reader has to be creative when he's reading. He has to try to make the thing alive. A good reader has to do a certain amount of work when he is reading."
"A left turn in the fate of Russia is as necessary as it is inevitable."
"For long, history was mainly political history, and historical narrative was confined to an account of the most important crises in political life, or to an account of wars and great generals."
"Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one."
"Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that."
"The two most important things that can be done to promote democracy in the world is first, to bring moral clarity back to world affairs and second, to link international policies to the advance of democracy around the globe."
"Questions about her feelings, about what has been or might be going on in her soul are non of my business; they are the business of her conscience and belong to religion."
"Chess for me is not a game, but an art. Yes, and I take upon myself all those responsibilities which an art imposes on its adherents."
"Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing."
"These guys were the real owners of the country, and for them to discuss with this young guy who becomes a member of the government was absolutely unacceptable."
"If it were possible for any nation to fathom another people's bitter experience through a book, how much easier its future fate would become and how many calamities and mistakes it could avoid. But it is very difficult. There always is this fallacious belief: 'It would not be the same here; here such things are impossible.'Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth."
"If a teacher has only love for the cause, it will be a good teacher. If a teacher has only love for student, as a father, mother, he will be better than the teacher, who read all the books, but has no love for the cause, nor to the students. If the teacher combines love to the cause and to his disciples, he is the perfect teacher."
"Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more."
"The negative side is that sometimes it is beyond control."
"Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just and idea, just pie in the sky."
"No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses."
"I have continued to work at different things, and rebuilt my home all by myself. I did it for the sake of satisfaction at doing something. I did it because I happened to be where I was."
"Only one who loves can remember so well."
"I can say without affectation that I belong to the Russian convict world no less than I do to Russian literature. I got my education there, and it will last forever."
"I joined the city government, and we start to operate as the bureaucrats on the local level, so we were the only ones in the whole Russian team who were experienced in practical bureaucratic management in the complicated condition of 1990."
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