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Quotes by Russian Authors
"Pleasures flit by - they are only for yourself; work leaves a mark of long-lasting joy, work is for others."
"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!"
"The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good."
"You must obey the law, always, not only when they grab you by your special place."
"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..."
"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."
"You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings."
"I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies."
"I don't like to show my emotions at the board, not because they might give something away to an opponent, but because that's my style: I like to keep it to myself."
"A mother-in-law is better than a single and childless political persona, though."
"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."
"Mento mori-remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die-what makes this any different from a half hour?"
"There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it."
"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."
"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."
"Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary."
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
"Europe has united, China is growing speedily and Russia possesses immense power in terms of fuel resources. The US administration cannot do anything about it."
"Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it."
"A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron."
"Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too."
"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"
"If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?"
"Russia is a part of European culture. Therefore, it is with difficulty that I imagine NATO as an enemy."
"They say: misfortunes, sufferings...well, if someone said to me right now, this minute: do you want to remain the way you were before captivity, or live through it all over again? For God's sake, captivity again and horsemeat! Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it's only here that the new and the good begins. As long as there's life, there's happiness. There's much, much still to come."
"As was to be expected, the discovery of the nervous apparatus of the salivary glands immediately impelled physiologists to seek a similar apparatus in other glands lying deeper in the digestive canal."
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