Nikolai Gogol

“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 unk...”

“Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacr...”

“Two turtle doves will show thee Where my cold ashes lie And sadly murmuring tell thee How in tears I did die”

“Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great...”

“Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.”

“Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.”

“It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.”

“Atheists have not produced so much evil as hypocrites have produced, or even simply those who preached God without being prepared for Him, daring to pronounce His name with unsanctified lips...”

“I ask everyone in Russia to pray for me, beginning with the bishops, whose whole life is a single prayer. I ask prayers also of those who humbly do not believe in the efficacy of their praye...”

“The higher truths are, the more cautious one must be with them; otherwise, they are converted into common things, and common things are not believed.”

“There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.”

“Russia! Russia... Everything in you is open, desolate and level; your squat towns barely protrude in the midst of the plains like dots, like counters; there is nothing to tempt or enchant th...”

“Wise is the man who does not disdain any character and instead, examining him with a searching look, plumbs him to the very main-springs of his being.”

“I here ask pardon of all my compatriots for everything of which I have been guilty towards them. I know that, by my ill-considered and immature works, I have brought distress to many and tha...”

“Let my body be delivered to the earth without attention to the place where it lies; nothing should be associated with my dusty remains. Shame on him who draws any attention to a rotted flesh...”

“The influence of a woman can be very great, especially now, in the present order or disorder of society, in which there is a kind of spiritual chill, a kind of moral fatigue, demanding reani...”

“I am a writer, and the duty of a writer is not only to furnish pleasant pursuits for the mind and taste: he will be held accountable if things useful to the soul are not disseminated by his...”

“You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.”

“For a man, the soul of a woman is a preserving talisman, guarding him from moral infections; it is a power holding him to the straight path, a guide leading him back from the crooked to the...”

“If you have not first pondered the entire situation of the man whom you wish to help, and if you have not brought with you instructions for him to follow henceforth in leading his life, he w...”