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Quotes by Russian Authors
"Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men."
"We just philosophize, complain of boredom, or drink vodka. It's so clear, you see, that if we're to begin living in the present, we must first of all redeem our past and then be done with it forever. And the only way we can redeem our past is by suffering and by giving ourselves over to exceptional labor, to steadfast and endless labor."
"Even in Siberia there is happiness."
"All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead."
"Compassion is the chief law of human existence."
"The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to."
"It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace."
"After the Revolution I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it."
"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart."
"I don't like being with grown-up people. I've known that a long time. I don't like it because I don't know how to get on with them."
"She is here, near my heart again!' he cried. 'Oh Lord, I thank Thee for all, for all, for Thy wrath and for Thy mercy! . . .And for Thy sun which is shining upon us again after the storm! For all this minute I thank Thee! Oh, we may be insulted and humiliated, but we're together again, and now the proud and haughty who have insulted and humiliated us may triumph! Let them throw stones at us! Have no fear, Natasha.... We will go hand in hand and I will say to them, 'This is my darling, this is my beloved daughter, my innocent daughter whom you have insulted and humiliated, but whom I love and bless for ever and ever!"
"I have equal contempt for both left and right radicals."
"I worked it through with pride,I almost spoke without words, and i'm masterly at speaking without words.All my life I have spoken without words, and I have passed through whole tragedies on my own account without words."
"I believe he was feeling a bit nervous. Possibly it was my costume that took him aback. I was dressed quite well, even elegantly, and looked as if I belonged to the best society."
"To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!"
"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature."
"It was his self-esteem she had sought to destroy, knowing that a man who surrenders his value is at the mercy of anyone's will; it was his moral purity she had struggled to breach, it was his confident rectitude she had wanted to shatter by means of the poison of guilt-as if, were he to collapse, his depravity would give her a right to hers."
"Ivanov: Gentlemen, you've again set up a drinking shop in my study... I have asked each and every one of you a thousand times not to do that... Look now, you've spilt vodka on a paper... and there are crumbs... and gherkins... It's disgusting!"
"To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God."
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
"He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply."
"Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people, religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man."
"No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place."
"The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself."
"The geniuses of all ages and of all lands speak different languages but the same flame burns in them all. Oh, if you only knew what unearthly happiness my soul feels now from being able to understand them."
"For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones."
"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around? "Darling, what do you mean? "There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it," she said, her voice lifeless, "or who thought or felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant."Darling, you take everything too seriously. One is not supposed to be intellectual at a ball. One is simply supposed to be gay." How? By being stupid?"
"I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry."
"War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous..."
"On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis."
"Mozart's music is like an X-ray of your soul - it shows what is there, and what isn't."
"There are crimes that are truly uncomely. With crimes, whatever they may be, the more blood, the more horror there is, the more imposing they are, the more picturesque, so to speak, but there are crimes that are shameful, disgraceful, all horror aside, so to speak, even far too ungracious..."
"Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character."
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