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Quotes by Russian Authors
"I still love to play chess. So I do not even spend a minute on the possibility to step back."
"Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it."
"For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages."
"At one time,' Golenishchev continued, either not observing or not willing to observe that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, 'at one time a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conception of religion, law, and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed. They grow up in ideas of negation in everything -- in other words, utter savages."
"The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds."
"There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he who gives alms. Even as there is no one so miserable as he who accepts them."
"I shot with it a lot. I still do now. That is why I am hard of hearing."
"Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions."
"That's metaphysics, my dear fellow. It's forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won't take it."
"But life is a great school. It thrashes and bangs and teaches you."
"It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction."
"For me, the moral difficulties lie in the continual pressure brought to bear on my friends and immediate family, pressure which is not directed against me personally but which at the same time is all around me."
"My optimism is not based primarily on the successful march of democracy in recent times but rather is based on the experience of having lived in a fear society and studied the mechanics of tyranny that sustain such a society."
"The digestive canal represents a tube passing through the entire organism and communicating with the external world, i.e. as it were the external surface of the body, but turned inwards and thus hidden in the organism."
"Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains."
"Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you."
"I want you to have this feeling too - it is my moral responsibility to help you achieve this inner freedom."
"Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty."
"If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fall to leave their impress behind them."
"It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry."
"The democratic choice Russian people made in the early 90's is final."
"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
"Andrei, did you like the opera?""Not particularly.""Andrei, do you see what you're missing?""I don't think I do, Kira. It's all rather silly. And useless.""Can't you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful?""No. But I enjoyed it.""The music?""No. The way you listened to it."
"In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One."
"People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt... They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear."
"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."
"To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also."
"I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well."
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