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Quotes by Russian Authors
"It has generally been assumed that of two opposing systems of philosophy, e.g., realism and idealism, one only can be true and one must be false; and so philosophers have been hopelessly divided on the question, which is the true one."
"If one cannot catch a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen."
"Advertising is the very essence of democracy."
"Conservatism clings to what has been established, fearing that, once we begin to question the beliefs that we have inherited, all the values of life will be destroyed."
"For almost thirty years I repeatedly saw one and the same dream: I would arrive in Vienna at long last. I would feel really happy, for I was returning to my serene childhood."
"If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you."
"A theoretical grounding in agronomy must, therefore, include knowledge of biological laws."
"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."
"It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the Spirits of the Dead."
"You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know."
"My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could."
"Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a meat ax. All that is subtle in human psychology and in the structure of society (which is even more complex), all of this is reduced to crude economic processes. The whole created being-man-is reduced to matter. It is characteristic that Communism is so devoid of arguments that it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries. It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement."
"Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand."
"He is not apprehended by reason, but by life."
"And she thought, with a vicious thrill, of what these people would do if they read her mind in this moment; if they knew that she was thinking of a man in a quarry, thinking of his body with a sharp intimacy as one does not think of another's body but only of one's own. She smiled; the cold purity of her face prevented them from seeing the nature of that smile."
"The Soviet Union was an exception, but even there chess players were not rich. Only Fischer changed that."
"Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire...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."
"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."
"He had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. And through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people."
"It is better to discuss things, to argue and engage in polemics than make perfidious plans of mutual destruction."
"One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry."
"Every top player has his own style, just as every painter has his own personal signature."
"We'll limit in all ways the work of religious faiths which are foreign to us."
"The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart."
"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker."
"In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions."
"My manager wants me to dress like a nun and I want to dress like a teenager."
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