130 Quotes About Russian-literature

Es gibt wenige Orte, wo sich so viele trübe, starke, seltsame Momente, die auf die menschliche Seele wirken, vereinigt finden, wie in Petersburg.

In matters of conscience and basic convictions it is unlawful and pernicious for anyone to forcibly intrude upon another's beliefs; therefore, because I am a man of rational convictions, I will not go out and demolish churches, drown monks, or rip down icons from my friends' walls because in so doing I will not spread my convictions; human beings must be educated, not coerced, I am not the enemy, I am not the tyrant of the conscience of true believers.

These ordained atheists cultivate their egoism, the source of every atheist's activity, but they defile it and it becomes repulsive whereas the egoism of good atheists is a beautiful principle. They preach raging sermons not because they fear for the eternal damnation of their fold, but because they fear for the eternal damnation of their gold; before every sermon they feel their pockets to see if there's a hole, and if there is, they mend it with a sermon instead of a patch.

On his life between 1926-1927: "like a bad Russian novel

And it has always been a mystery, and I've marveled a thousand times at this ability of man (and, it seems, of the Russian man above all) to cherish the highest ideal in his soul alongside the greatest baseness, and all that in perfect sincerity. --The Adolescent (or, The Raw Youth)

perchè non c'è nessun altro dal quale andare! Bisogna pure che ogni uomo abbia qualche posto dove andare. Poichè ci sono momenti in cui assolutamente bisogna andare da qualche parte!

What he would have liked, without admitting it, was for the whole world, forever under construction yet never constructed, to be like his own destroyed life.

God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others.

Sí, todo era equivocado, pensó, pero no importa. Se puede, es posible hacer lo otro. Pero se preguntó, ¿qué es lo otro?, y de repente se quedó sosegado.