First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"Солнце нашей поэзии закатилось! Пушкин скончался, скончался во цвете лет, в средине своего великого поприща!.. Более говорить о сем не имеем силы, да и не нужно; всякое русское сердце знает всю цену этой невозвратимой потери, и всякое русское сердце будет растерзано."
"Homeland, tenderer than first caresses,/you have taught me to protect and guard/golden language in all Pushkin's treasures,/Gogol's magic, captivating word."
"Tormented by spiritual thirst, I dragged myself through a somber desert. And a six-winged seraph Appeared to meet me at the crossing of the ways. He touched my eyes With fingers as light as a dream: And my prophetic eyes opened Like those of a frightened eagle. He touched my ears And they were filled with noise and ringing: And I heard the shuddering of the heavens, And the flight of the angels in the heights, And the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters, And the sound of the vine growing in the valley. He bent down to my mouth And tore out my tongue, Sinful, decitful, and given to idle talk; with the right hand steeped in blood He inserted the tongue of a wise serpent, Into my benumbed mouth. He clove my breast with a sword, And plucked out my quivering heart, And thrust a coal of live fire Into my gaping breast. Like a corpse I lay in the desert. And the voice of God called out to me: 'Arise, O prophet, see and hear, Be filled with my will, Go forth over land and sea, And set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.'"
"Hermann went out of his mind, and is now confined in room Number 17 of the Obukhov Hospital. He never answers any questions, but he constantly mutters with unusual rapidity: "Three, seven, ace!" "Three, seven, queen!""
""Ace has won!" cried Hermann, showing his card. "Your queen has lost," said Chekalinsky, politely. Hermann started; instead of an ace, there lay before him the queen of spades! He could not believe his eyes, nor could he understand how he had made such a mistake. At that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades smiled ironically and winked her eye at him. He was struck by her remarkable resemblance... "The old Countess!" he exclaimed, seized with terror."
"Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world."
"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice: "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna."
""The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?"
"What stirs ye? Is it that this nation"
".. you mark the fate"
"And shall Slavonic streams meet in a Russian ocean --"
"Why rave ye, babblers, so -- ye lords of popular wonder?"
"Mosalsky: Good folk! Maria Godunov and her son Feodor have poisoned themselves. We have seen their dead bodies. [The People are silent with horror.] Why are ye silent? Cry, Long live the Tsar Dimitry Ivanovich! [The People are speechless.]"
"Ah! heavy art thou, crown of Monomakh!"
"Like some magistrate grown gray in office, Calmly he contemplates alike the just And unjust, with indifference he notes Evil and good, and knows not wrath nor pity."
"Pimen [writing in front of a sacred lamp]: One more, the final record, and my annals Are ended, and fulfilled the duty laid By God on me a sinner. Not in vain Hath God appointed me for many years A witness, teaching me the art of letters; A day will come when some laborious monk Will bring to light my zealous, nameless toil, Kindle, as I, his lamp, and from the parchment Shaking the dust of ages will transcribe My true narrations."
"Что наши лучшие желанья, Что наши свежие мечтанья Истлели быстрой чередой, Как листья осенью гнилой."
"Москва… как много в этом звуке Для сердца русского слилось! Как много в нем отозвалось!"
"The clock of doom had struck as fated; the poet, without a sound, let fall his pistol on the ground."
"Among a number of intelligent suggestions there was finally this one too, strange as it may seem, that Chichikov might be Napoleon in disguise..."
"The gentleman lolling back in the chaise was neither dashingly handsome nor yet unbearably ugly, neither too stout nor yet too thin; it could not be claimed he was old but he was no stripling, either. His arrival in the town created no stir and was not marked by anything out of the ordinary."
"[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!"
"As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?"
"There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something."
"And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone."
"Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you? Surely, nowhere but among a nimble nation could you have been born in a country which has taken itself in earnest and has evenly spread far and wide over half of the globe, so that once you start counting the milestones you may count on till a speckled haze dances before your eyes... Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!... And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?... Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me. No answer. The middle bell trills out in a dream its liquid soliloquy; the roaring air is torn to pieces and becomes wind; all things on earth fly by and other nations and states gaze askance as they step aside and give her the right of way."
"Rus! Rus! I see you, from my lovely enchanted remoteness I see you: a country of dinginess, and bleakness and dispersal; no arrogant wonders of nature crowned by the arrogant wonders of art appear within you to delight or terrify the eyes... So what is the incomprehensible secret force driving me towards you? Why do I constantly hear the echo of your mournful song as it is carried from the sea through your entire expanse?... And since you are without end yourself, is it not within you that a boundless thought will be born?"
"Why are you being so stingy?", Sobakevich demanded. "It's cheap at the price. A rogue would cheat you, sell you some worthless rubbish instead of souls, but mine are as juicy as ripe nuts, all picked—they are all either craftsmen or sturdy peasants."
"there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word"
"The reason why Proshka wore such large boots can be explained at once: Plyushkin kept only one pair of boots for all of his servants, however numerous they were, and they always stood in the hall."
"They insist that an author should write in the strictest, purest and noblest language: in short, they expect the Russian language to drop from the clouds, already refined, and that it should come naturally to the lips, so that all they have to do is to open their mouth and stick out their tongue. It goes without saying, of course, that the feminine half of the human species is very wise; but it must be confessed that our respected readers are even wiser."
"Apparently that does sometimes happen. Apparently even men like Chichikov are transformed into poets for a few moments in their lives: though the word "poet" would be an exaggeration here."
"However, nothing turned out as Tchitchikoff had intended."
"Russia! Russia! I see you now, from my wondrous, beautiful past I behold you! How wretched, dispersed, and uncomfortable everything is about you..."
"Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika?"
"I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers brought up reading other Latin American writers...Many Russian novelists influenced me as well: Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Nabokov, Gogol, and Bulgarov."
"What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves!"
"When the priest went in, he stopped short at the sight of this defamation of God's holy place, and dared not serve the requiem on such a spot. And so the church was left forever, with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, was overgrown with forest trees, roots, rough grass and wild thorns, and no one can now find the way to it."
"In the course of reading he became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading was over he uttered in a voice full of sorrow: "Goodness, how sad is our Russia!""
"I shall laugh my bitter laugh."
"...it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life."
"Dogs are clever fellows; they know all about politics [...]"
"The year 2000: April 43rd.—To-day is a day of splendid triumph. Spain has a king; he has been found, and I am he."
"Marchember 86. Between day and night."
"No date. The day had no date."
"[P]eople think that the human brain is in the head. Nothing of the sort; it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea."
"To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil—hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon."
"All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff."
"[Final lines] mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place. Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?"