Atheists From Russia

"I was, I am and will remain the Russian, the son of the Motherland. Her life first of all I will be interested in. I will live with her interests. With her’s dignity I will strengthen mine."

"Pavlov’s findings were confirmed in the most distressing manner, and on a very large scale, during the two World Wars. As the result of a single catastrophic experience, or of a succession of terrors less appalling but frequently repeated, soldiers develop a number of disabling psycho-physical symptoms. Temporary unconsciousness, extreme agitation, lethargy, functional blindness or paralysis, completely unrealistic responses to the challenge of events, strange reversals of life-long patterns of behaviour—all the symptoms, which Pavlov observed in his dogs, re-appeared among the victims of what in the First World War was called ‘shell shock’, in the Second, ‘battle fatigue’. Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance. Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days. Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity."

"Mankind will possess incalculable advantages and extraordinary control over human behavior when the scientific investigator will be able to subject his fellow men to the same external analysis he would employ for any natural object, and when the human mind will contemplate itself not from within but from without."

"The Sun-Paul must consider only one thing: what is the relation of this or that external reaction of the animal to the phenomena of the external world?"

"Learn, compare, collect the facts!"

"Tolstoy was an advocate of non-resistance only because he was protected from people’s impudence by his innumerable friends. One man can stand for non-resistance, because those who stand for resistance will protect him. You will not be able to do without resistance advocates."

"Нет бога-творца, но есть космос, производящий солнца, планеты и живых существ. Нет всемогущего бога, но есть вселенная, которая распоряжается судьбой всех небесных тел и их жителей. Нет сынов божьих, но есть зрелые и потому разумные и совершенные сыны космоса. Нет личных богов, но есть избранные правители: планет, солнечных систем, звёздных групп, млечных путей, эфирных островов и всего космоса. Нет Христа, но есть гениальный человек, великий учитель человечества."

"Мир отчаянно несовершенен. Коли бы четвертая часть человеческих работников была поглощена новыми мыслями и изобретениями и сидела бы на шее остальных, то человечество все же чрезмерно бы выиграло благодаря непрерывному потоку изобретений и интеллектуальных трудов, исходящих из этой оравы стремящихся ввысь."

"Этика космоса, т.е. ее сознательных существ состоит в том, чтобы не было нигде никаких страданий: ни для совершенных, ни для других недозрелых или начинающих своё развитие животных. Это есть выражение чистейшего себялюбия (эгоизма). Ведь если во вселенной не будет мук и неприятностей, то ни один ее атом не попадёт в несовершенный страдальческий или преступный организм."

"Ничего нет, кроме атомов и их сочетаний. Нет атома, который периодически не принимал бы участия в жизни"

"Человечество не останется вечно на земле, но в погоне за светом и пространством сначала робко проникнет за пределы атмосферы, а затем завоюет себе все околосолнечное пространство"

"Планета есть колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели"

"All the Universe is full of the life of perfect creatures."

"Ничего не признаю, кроме материи. В физике, химии и биологии я вижу одну механику. Весь космос только бесконечный и сложный механизм. Сложность его так велика, что граничит с произволом, неожиданностью и случайностью, она дает иллюзию свободной воли сознательных существ."

"The blue distance, the mysterious Heavens, the example of birds and insects flying everywhere —are always beckoning Humanity to rise into the air."

"When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating."

"Hoping for the critics' indulgence, the author asks to send money for his story immediately, otherwise his wife and kids will die of hunger."

"To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards."

"In order to cultivate yourself and to drop no lower than the level of the milieu in which you have landed, it is not enough to read Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust. <…> You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will… Each hour is precious."

"A grimy fly can soil the entire wall and a small, dirty little act can ruin the entire proceedings."

"Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all."

"There are people whom even children’s literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon."

"There is no Monday which will not give its place to Tuesday."

"It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution."

"My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life."

"There is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human."

"Nothing lulls and inebriates like money; when you have a lot, the world seems a better place than it actually is."

"And I thought that were we now to obtain political liberty, of which we talk so much, while engaged in biting one another, we should not know what to do with it, we should waste it in accusing one another in the newspapers of being spies and money-grubbers, we should frighten society with the assurance that we have neither men, nor science, nor literature, nothing! Nothing!"

"Do you know when you may concede your insignificance? In front of God or, perhaps, in front of the intellect, beauty, or nature, but not in front of people. Among people, one must be conscious of one’s dignity."

"Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience."

"How intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything."

"Man will only become better when you make him see what he is like."

"When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean—that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses—that is science."

"As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone."

"Although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority."

"Our self-esteem and conceit are European, but our culture and actions are Asiatic."

"If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him."

"When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams."

"They say: "In the long run truth will triumph;" but it is untrue."

"Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them."

"Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something."

"How pleasant it is to respect people! When I see books, I am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; I see only their marvelous works."

"There is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science."

"I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious."

"It is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich."

"If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry."

"The more refined the more unhappy."

"People love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives."

"Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die."

"We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: "In the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past.""