top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Russian Authors
"I worship her, Alyosha, worship her. Only she doesn't see it. No, she still thinks I don't love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The past was nothing! In the past it was only that infernal body of hers that tortured me, but now I've taken all her soul into my soul and through her I've become a man. Will they marry us? If they don't I will die of jealousy. I imagine something every day..."
"You went up to be examined with the other Jewish children, your heart heavy about that matter of your nose."
"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"
"When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured."
"In order to forgive, one must have lived through what I have lived through, and may God spare her that."
"The Berlin Defence suited my strategy for the match. I had a defensive strategy - Actually, I had in my pocket some other sharper stuff to fall back on - but first I wanted to try the defensive strategy with Black and it worked so well."
"Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man."
"We don't need a weakened government but a strong government that would take responsibility for the rights of the individual and care for the society as a whole."
"There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth."
"The University brings out all abilities, including incapability."
"The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good."
"Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn."
"I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason."
"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"
"That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it."
"One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity."
"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."
"Remember that there is onlyone important time and is Now. The present moment isthe only time over which we have dominion. The mostimportant person is always the person with whom youare, who is right before you, for who knows if you willhave dealings with any other person in the future. Themost important pursuit is making that person, the onestanding at you side, happy, for that alone is the pursuitof life."
"I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I weep for the past love which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not know. Love remains, but not the old love; its place remains, but it is all wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections are still left, and gratitude; but..."
"To my utter despair I have discovered, and discover every day anew, that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion."
"A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution."
"It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed."
"A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache."
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do."
"We are not abandoning our convictions, our philosophy or traditions, nor do we urge anyone to abandon theirs."
"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."
"The method of exposition which philosophers have adopted leads many to suppose that they are simply inquiries, that they have no interest in the conclusions at which they arrive, and that their primary concern is to follow their premises to their logical conclusions."
"Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity."
"For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men- and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears."
"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking..."
"What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians."
"The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves."
"If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?"
"I'm not the next anyone, I'm the first Maria Sharapova."
bottom of page