Quotes by Russian Authors - Page 5

My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labor was the only thing men called their own.
Leo Tolstoy
To come up with one great sentence, one needs to serve a life sentence.
Lera Auerbach
Death defines life. I'd rather stay undefined.
Lera Auerbach
The harder life is for a man when he is young, the easier it will be in the future.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
You are really angry with me for not having appeared to you in a red glow, with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North")
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Let whoever wants to, relax in the south,And bask in the garden of paradise.Here is the essence of north—and it's autumnI've chosen as this year's friend.
Anna Akhmatova
The main misfortune, the root of all the evil to come, was the loss of confidence in the value of one’s own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date to follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people’s notions, notions that were being crammed down everybody’s throat.
Boris Pasternak
He approaches a cockroach in only one respect: his coloration is brown. That is all. Apart from this he has a tremendous convex belly divided into segments and a hard rounded back suggestive of wing cases. In beetles these cases conceal flimsy little wings that can be expanded and then may carry the beetle for miles and miles in a blundering flight. Curiously enough, Gregor the beetle never found out that he had wings under the hard covering of his back. (This is a very nice observation on my part to be treasured all your lives. Some Gregors, some Joes and Janes, do not know that they have wings.)
Vladimir Nabokov
A mountain had died, its skeleton had been scattered over the ground. Time had aged the mountain; time had killed the mountain-and here lay the mountain's bones.
Vasily Grossman
Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that voluntary confinement is a great deal harder to bear than compulsory.
Anton Chekhov
In those years only the dead smiled, Glad to be at rest: And Leningrad city swayed like A needless appendix to its prisons.
Anna Akhmatova
Those who floated in the ark were weightless and had weightless thoughts. They were neither hungry nor satisfied. They had no happiness and no fear of losing it. Their heads were not filled with petty official calculations, intrigues, promotions, and their shoulders were not burdened with concerns about housing, fuel, bread, and clothes for the children. Love, which from time immemorial has been the delight and the torment of humanity, was powerless to communicate to them its thrill or its agony. Their prison terms were so long that no one even thought of the time when he would go out into freedom. Men with exceptional Intellect, education, and experience, but too devoted to their families to have much of themselves left over for their friends, here belonged only to friends.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It was clearly a prisoner's craftwork; that is, the most painstaking work in the world, for prisoners have nowhere to hurry to.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Pardon me, you ... love life? You who exclaim and sing over and over and dance it too: "i love you, life! Oh, I love you, life!" Do you? Well, go on, love it! Camp life -- love that too! It, too, is life!
Aleksander Solženitsyn
I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison.
Daniil Kharms
Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruellest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.
Anna Politkovskaya
How we react to the tragedy of one small person accurately reflects our attitude towards a whole nationality, and increasing the numbers doesn't change much.
Anna Politkovskaya
At least a circus performance does not last long, and the regime availing itself of the services of clownish journalists has the longevity of a mouldering mushroom.
Anna Politkovskaya
What matter is the information, not what you think about it.
Anna Politkovskaya
Do you still think the world is vast? That if there is a conflagration in one place it does not have a bearing on another, and that you can sit it out in peace on your veranda admiring your absurd petunias?
Anna Politkovskaya
I keep finding myself confronted with the question, “What is the aim of man’s life?” and, no matter what result my reflections reach, no matter what I take to be life’s source, I invariably arrive at the conclusion that the purpose of our human existence is to afford a maximum of help towards the universal development of everything that exists.If I meditate as I contemplate nature, I perceive everything in nature to be in constant process of development, and each of nature’s constituent portions to be unconsciously contributing towards the development of others. But man is, though a like portion of nature, a portion gifted with consciousness, and therefore bound, like the other portions, to make conscious use of his spiritual faculties in striving for the development of everything existent.If I meditate as I contemplate history, I perceive the whole human race to be for ever aspiring towards the same end.If I meditate on reason, if I pass in review man’s spiritual faculties, I find the soul of every man to have in it the same unconscious aspiration, the same imperative demand of the spirit.If I meditate with an eye upon the history of philosophy, I find everywhere, and always, men to have arrived at the conclusion that the aim of human life is the universal development of humanity.If I meditate with an eye upon theology, I find almost every nation to be cognizant of a perfect existence towards which it is the aim of mankind to aspire.So I too shall be safe in taking for the aim of my existence a conscious striving for the universal development of everything existent. I should be the unhappiest of mortals if I could not find a purpose for my life, and a purpose at once universal and useful… Wherefore henceforth all my life must be a constant, active striving for that one purpose.
Leo Tolstoy
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Do you believe that you will die? Yes, man is mortal, I am a man, ergo... No, that isn't what I mean. I know that you know that. What I'm asking is: Have you ever actually believed it, believe it completely, believe not with your mind but with your body, actually felt that one day the fingers now holding this very piece of paper will be yellow and icy...?
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!
Mikhail Bulgakov
We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana?
Gary Shteyngart
It is noteworthy that at a time when every religious sanction of authority has vanished, we live in a very authoritarian epoch.
Nikolai A. Berdyaev
I daresay that the gradual “decomposition” of scripture, its dissolution in more and more specialized and negative criticism, is a result of its alienation from the eucharist – and practically from the Church herself – as an experience of a spiritual reality. And in its own turn, this same alienation deprived the sacrament of its evangelical content, converting it into a self-contained and self-sufficient “means of sanctification.” The scriptures and the Church are reduced here to the category of two formal *authorities*, two "sources of the faith"--as they are called in the scholastic treatises, for which the only question is which authority is the higher: which "interprets" which.As a matter of fact, by its own logic, this approach demands a further contraction, a further "reduction." For if we proclaim holy scripture to be the supreme authority for teaching the faith in the Church, then what is the “criterion” of scripture? Sooner or later it becomes “biblical science” – i.e., in the final analysis, naked reason. But if, on the other hand, we proclaim the Church to be the definitive, highest and inspired interpreter of scripture, then through whom, where and how is this interpretation brought about? And however we answer this question, this “organ” or “authority” in fact proves to be standing over the scriptures, as an *outside* authority.
Alexander Schmemann
I've read your summary.""And?""It's not incompetent."Be still, my heart, so I don't faint from such faint phrase. "Did you expect it to be written in crayon?
Ilona Andrews
The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.
Vladimir Nabokov
Katerina Lvovna lived a boring life in the rich house of her father-in-law during the five years of marriage to her unaffectionate husband; but, as often happens, no one paid the slightest attention to this boredom of hers.
Nikolai Leskov
Try to embrace, or let yourself be embraced by, boredom and anguish, which anyhow are larger than you. No doubt you'll find that bosom smothering, yet try to endure it as long as you can, and then some more. Above all, don't think you've goofed somewhere along the line, don't try to retrace your steps to correct the error. No, as the poet said, "Believe your pain." This awful bear is no mistake. Nothing that disturbs you is. Remember all along that there is no embrace in this world that won't finally unclasp.
Joseph Brodsky
Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it's been sworn in! ... Let's think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks?
Anton Chekhov
When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.
Joseph Brodsky
I believe the best reviews are any of those wherein readers share their true opinion, no matter how many stars they rate my work. When I receive responses from appreciative people thanking for useful and amusing reading, it feels like my wings stretch up and blood carries the highest happiness circulating in my veins. I think many writers will understand what I mean by that.
Sahara Sanders
The worst reviews, by my mind, are those from individuals who enjoy entertaining themselves by writing something bad about books they actually never read, which is as clear as day from what they’re saying. It’s even more puzzling for an author to check some of these “honest” reviewers’ pages and see that they created their profile with one goal in mind; to post you a bad review, as there’s nothing else they wanted to rate.
Sahara Sanders
I love it when people lie! Lying is only man's privilege over all other organisms. Lying is what makes me a man.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
To begin with, I had never done any good deeds; besides, even if I had simply fabricated a few, I would not have enjoyed going on about them.
M. Ageyev
The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.
Elena Gorokhova
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.
Andrei Tarkovsky
We must endure, Alyosha." That was the only thing she could say in response to my accounts of the ugliness and dreariness of life, of the suffering of the people — of everything against which I protested so vehemently. I was not made for endurance, and if occasionally I exhibited this virtue of cattle, wood, and stone, I did so only to test myself, to try my strength and my stability. Sometimes young people, in the foolishness of immaturity, or in envy of the strength of their elders, strive, even successfully, to lift weights that overtax their bones and muscles; in their vanity they attempt to cross themselves with two-pood weights, like mature athletes. I too did this, in the literal and figurative sense, physically and spiritually, and only good fortune kept me from injuring myself fatally or crippling myself for life.For nothing cripples a person so dreadfully as endurance, as a humble submission to the forces of circumstance.
Maxim Gorky
People don't usually think about the meaning of the words they say. It seems to them that words convey truth. That when someone hears the word "red" he will think of a ripe raspberry and not a pool of blood. That the word "love" will evoke Shakespeare's sonnets and not the erotic films of Playboy. And they find themselves baffled when the word they've spoken doesn't evoke the right response.
Sergei Lukyanenko
A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That’s what I like about coincidence.
Vladimir Nabokov
What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world!
Leo Tolstoy
And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that one's individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution, becomes something more than an optimistic conjecture, and even more than a matter of religious faith, when we remember that only commonsense rules immortality out.
Vladimir Nabokov
Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time. - Henry David Thoreau
Leo Tolstoy
Simplicity itself is the key. Education in ballet, dance, martial arts, etc., is done through poses, or to be more precise, through a countless series of poses. Perfection of movement is achieved through the flow of perfectly rehearsed poses.
Nicholas Romanov
All right, let's consider some history here. I see a number of girls are wearing pants. This used to be frowned upon. In 1938, Helen Hulick was jailed for wearing slacks -- put behind bars.Do you think society should have the right to jail or punish you for what you choose to wear?
Svetlana Chmakova
All my contemporaries—hundred-and-fivers or convicts—will tell you how we livedin barely sentient fear, raisingchildren for the executioner,prison, or the torture chamber.
Anna Akhmatova
All mothers are mothers of great people, and it is not their fault that life later disappoints them.
Boris Pasternak
What is this film (Mirror) about?It is about a Man. No, not the particular man whose voice we hear from behind the screen, played by Innokentiy Smoktunovsky. It's a film about you, your father, your grandfather, about someone who will live after you and who is still "you". About a Man who lives on the earth, is a part of the earth and the earth is a part of him, about the fact that a man is answerable for his life both to the past and to the future. You have to watch this film simply, and listen to the music of Bach and the poems of Arseniy Tarkovsky; watch it as one watches the stars, or the sea, as one admires a landscape. There is no mathematical logic here, for it cannot explain what man is or what is the meaning of his life. (Sculpting in Time)
andrey tarkovsky
Down the steps,...over the corpses,...careers the pram with the child.
Sergei Eisenstein
A poet is someone who can use a single image to send a universal message.
Andrei Tarkovsky
When less than everything has been said about a subject, you can still think on further. The alternative is for the audience to be presented with a final deduction (...) no effort on their part.What can it mean to them when they have not shared with the author the misery and joy of bringing an image into being?
Andrei Tarkovsky
To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Though outwardly Kristina maintained that a clean room was a symptom of a diseased mind (for how could she, while studying the world's greatest thinkers, be bothered with such mundane earthly issues as cleaning?), inwardly she hated untidyness and made a point of spending as little time in the room as possible.
Paullina Simons
A first-rate college library with a comfortable campus around it is a fine milieu for a writer. There is, of course, the problem of educating the young. I remember how once, between terms, not at Cornell, a student brought a transistor set with him into the reading room. He managed to state that one, he was playing “classical” music; that two, he was doing it “softly”; and that three, “there were not many readers around in summer.” I was there, a one-man multitude.
Vladimir Nabokov