Alexander Pushkin Quotes

Whom then to love? Whom to have faith in?
Who can there be who won't betray?
Who'll judge a deed or disputation
Obligingly by what we say?
Who'll not bestrew our path with slander?
Who'll cosset us with care and candour?
Oh, ineffectual phantom seeker
You waste your energy in vain:
Love your own self, be your own man,
My worthy, venerable reader!
A worthwhile object: surely who
Could be more lovable than you?

It's now the British Muse's fables That lie on maidens' bedside tables And haunt their dreams. They worship now The Vampire with his pensive brow,

Enough! Clear-souled and far from wasted,
I start upon an untrod way
To take my rest from yesterday.

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm.

From an evil dog be glad of a handful of hairs.

It may be he was born to fire
The world with good, or earn at least
A gloried name; his silenced lyre
Might well have raised, before it ceased,
A call to ring throughout the ages.
Perhaps, upon the world's great stages,
He might have scaled a loft height.
His martyred shade, condemned to night,
Perhaps has carried off forever
Some sacred truth, a living word,
Now doomed by death to pass unheard;
And in the tomb his shade shall never
Receive our race's hymns of praise,
Nor hear the ages bless his days.

Я вас любил.../I loved you once...

Я вас любил: любовь еще, быть может
В душе моей угасла не совсем;
Но пусть она вас больше не тревожит;
Я не хочу печалить вас ничем.
Я вас любил безмолвно, безнадежно,
То робостью, то ревностью томим;
Я вас любил так искренно, так нежно,
Как дай вам бог любимой быть другим.

I loved you once: perhaps that love has yet
To die down thoroughly within my soul;
But let it not dismay you any longer;
I have no wish to cause you any sorrow.
I loved you wordlessly, without a hope,
By shyness tortured, or by jealousy.
I loved you with such tenderness and candor
And pray God grants you to be loved that way again.

Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane ...

Sauvage, sad, silent,
as timid as the sylvan doe,
in her own family
she seemed a strangeling.

Perhaps you'd like, you gentle fellow,
To hear what I'm prepared to say
On "kinfolk" and their implications?
Well, here's my view of close relations:
They're people whom we're bound to prize,
To honor, love, and idolize,
And following the old tradition,
To visit come the Christmas feast,
Or send a wish by mail at least;
All other days they've our permission,
To quite forget us if they please-
So grant them, God, long life and ease!

Blest who was youthful in his youth;
blest who matured at the right time;
who gradually the chill of life
with years was able to withstand;
who never was addicted to strange dreams;
who did not shun the fahsinable rabble;
who was at twenty fop or blade,
and then at thirty, profitably married;
who rid himself at fifty
of private and of other debts;
who fame, money, and rank
in due course calmly gained;
about whom lifelong one kept saying:
N. N. is an excellent man.

But it is sad to think that to no purpose
youth was given us,
that we betrayed it every hour,
that it duped us;
that our best wishes,
that our fresh dreamings,
in quick succession have decayed
like leaves in putrid autumn.
It is unbearable to see before one
only of dinners a long series,
to look on life as on a rite,
and in the wake of the decorous crowd
to go, not sharing with it
either general views, or passions.

Our northern summers, though, are versions Of southern winters, this is clear; And though we're loath to cast aspersions, They seem to go before they're here! The sky breathed autumn, turned and darkled; The friendly sun less often sparkled; The days grew short and as they sped, The wood with mournful murmur shed Its wondrous veil to stand uncovered; The fields all lay in misty peace; The caravan of cackling geese Turned south; and all around there hovered The sombre season near at hand; November marched across the land.

But really, this is no great sorrow, particularly, you'll agree, when wine's imported duty-free.

Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.

My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you ...

Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

Moscow ... how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts! what store of riches it imparts!

Tell him that riches will not procure for you a single moment of happiness. Luxury consoles poverty alone, and at that only for a short time, until one becomes accustomed to it.

Rousseau (I'll note with your permission)
Could not conceive how solemn Grimm
Dared clean his nails in front of him,
The madcap sage and rhetorician.
Champion of rights and liberty,
In this case judged wrong-headedly.
One still can be a man of action
And mind the beauty of one's nails:
Why fight the age's predilection?
Custom's a despot and prevails.

Moral commonplaces are amazingly useful when we can find little in ourselves with which to justify our actions.

Such a beginning presaged nothing good. However, I lost neither courage nor hope. I turned to the consolation of all those in distress, and for the first time tasted the sweetness of prayer, poured forth from a pure but riven heart. I fell asleep serenely, unworried as to what was to become of me.

Love is for every age auspicious,
But for the virginal and young
Its impulses are more propitious
Like vernal storms on meadows sprung:
They freshen in the rain of passion,
Ripening in their renovation –
And life, empowered, sends up shoots
Of richest blooms and sweetest fruits.
But at a late age, dry and fruitless,
The final stage to which we're led,
Sad is the trace of passions dead:
Thus storms in autumn, cold and ruthless,
Transform the field into a slough,
And strip the trees from root to bough.

The wondrous moment of our meeting...
Still I remember you appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty's angel pure and clear.

In hopeless ennui surrounding
The worldly bustle, to my ear
For long your tender voice kept sounding,
For long in dreams came features dear.

Time passed. Unruly storms confounded
Old dreams, and I from year to year
Forgot how tender you had sounded,
Your heavenly features once so dear.

My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet --
Dull fence around, dark vault above --
Devoid of God and uninspired,
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love.

Sleep from my soul began retreating,
And here you once again appear
Before me like a vision fleeting,
A beauty's angel pure and clear.

In ecstasy my heart is beating,
Old joys for it anew revive;
Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting
The fire, and tears, and love alive.

He who has lived and thought can't help
despising people in his soul;
him who has felt disturbs
the ghost of irrecoverable days;
for him there are no more enchantments;
him does the snake of memories,
him does repentance bite.

Admittedly, his dinners consisted only of two or three courses, and were prepared by an ex-soldier, but the champagne flowed like water.

In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he.

People are so like their first mother Eve: what they are given doesn't take their fancy. The serpent is forever enticing them to come to him, to the tree of mystery. They must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them.

But even friendship like our heroes'
Exist no more; for we've outgrown
All sentiments and deem men zeroes
Except of course ourselves alone.
We all take on Napoleon's features,
And millions of our fellow creatures
Are nothing more to us than tools ...
Since feelings are for freaks and fools.
Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions
And on the whole despised mankind,
Yet wasn't, like so many, blind;
And since each rule permits exceptions,
He did respect a noble few,
And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.

I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul
The former love has never gone away,
But let it not recall to you my dole;
I wish not sadden you in any way.
I loved you silently, without hope, fully,
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain;
I loved you so tenderly and truly,
As let you else be loved by any man.

I've lived to se my longings die
I've lived to se my longings die:
My dreams and I have grown apart;
Now only sorrow haunts my eye,
The wages of a bitter heart.
Beneath the storms of hostile fate,
My flowery wreath has faded fast;
I live alone and sadly wait
To see when death will come at last.
Just so, when the winds in winter moan
And snow descends in frigid flakes,
Upon a naked branch, alone,
The final leaf of summer shakes! ...

I've lived to bury my desires
and see my dreams corrode with rust
now all that's left are fruitless fires
that burn my empty heart to dust.
Struck by the clouds of cruel fate
My crown of Summer bloom is sere
Alone and sad, I watch and wait
And wonder if the end is near.
As conquered by the last cold air
When Winter whistles in the wind
Alone upon a branch that's bare
A trembling leaf is left behind.

That wondrous instant of our meeting -
my mind's eye sees you standing there,
a vision transient and fleeting,
true beauty's spirit, pure and rare.

In toils of hopeless grief confounded,
amid life's noise and stress it seems
for long that tender voice resounded
and those sweet features came in dreams.

Years passed; the storms that life engenders
dispersed my former hopes of grace
and I forgot those accents tender,
the heavenly beauty of your face.

And in my dark incarceration
my days passed like the clouds above,
bereft alike of inspiration,
of tears, of life itself, of love.

My soul awoke to new existence,
again you stood before me there,
a vision lasting but an instant,
true beauty's spirit, pure and rare.

My heart relives the old sensation
and once more steal down from above,
God's benediction, inspiration,
and tears, and life itself and love.

But flaming youth in all it's madness
Keeps nothing of its heart concealed:
It's loves and hates, its joys and sadness,
Are babbled out and soon revealed.

He knew this place, where once in sport/The flood had played and waves had bubbled,/Defiant in their fierce despair;/He knew these lions, and this square,/And him whose bronze head dominated/The darkness from its lofty height –/Whose fateful head will had on this site/Decreed a city be created.

Want of courage is the last thing to be pardoned by young men, who usually look upon bravery as the chief of all human virtues, and the excuse for every possible fault.

Bound for your distant home"

Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I've known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, 'When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.'

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me .......

And thus they aged, as do all mortals.
Until at last the husband found
That death had opened wide its portals,
Through which he entered, newly crowned.

And once more given to inaction,
Empty in spirit and alone,
He settled down – to the distraction
Of making other minds his own;
Collecting books, he stacked a shelfful,
Read, read, not even one was helpful:
Here, there was dullness, there pretence;
This one lacked conscience, that one sense;
All were by different shackles fettered;
And, past times having lost their hold,
The new still raved about the old.
Like women, books he now deserted,
And mourning taffeta he drew
Across the bookshelf's dusty crew.

Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.

In alien lands I keep the body
Of ancient native rites and things:
I gladly free a little birdie
At celebration of the spring.
I'm now free for consolation,
And thankful to almighty Lord:
At least, to one of his creations
I've given freedom in this world!

So meanwhile, friends, enjoy your blessing:
This fragile life that hurries so!
Its worthlessness needs no professing,
And I'm not loathe to let it go;
I've closed my eyes to phantoms gleaming,
Yet distant hopes within me dreaming
Still stir my heart at times to flight:
I'd grieve to quit this world's dim light
And leave no trace, however slender.
I live, I write - not seeking fame;
And yet, I think, I'd wish to claim
For my sad lot its share of splendour -
At least one note to linger long,
Recalling, like some friend, my song.

I am not in the position to sacrifice the essentials of life in the hope of acquiring the luxuries. -Pushkin

Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.

He's happy now, he's almost sane.

Fickle as water,
our life is as dreamlike as smoke
- at our expense,
fate's private joke.
-The Bronze Horseman

The noontide of my life is starting,
Which I must needs accept, I know;
But oh, my light youth, if we're parting,
I want you as a friend to go!
My thanks to you for the enjoyments,
The sadness and the pleasant torments,
The hubbub, storms, festivity,
For all that you have given me;
My thanks to you. I have delighted
In you when times were turbulent,
When times were calm... to full extent;
Enough now! With a soul clear-sighted
I set out on another quest
And from my old life take a rest.

Let me glance back. Farewell, you arbours
Where, in the backwoods, I recall
Days filled with indolence and ardours
And dreaming of a pensive soul.
And you, my youthful inspiration,
Keep stirring my imagination,
My heart's inertia vivify,
More often to my corner fly.
Let not a poet's soul be frozen,
Made rough and hard, reduced to bone
And finally be turned to stone
In that benumbing world he goes in,
In that intoxicating slough
Where, friends, we bathe together now.

Whoever you be, O my reader-
friend, foe- I wish with you
to part at present as a pal.
Farewell. Whatever you in my wake
sought in these careless strophes-
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
live pictures or bons mots,
or faults of grammar-
God grant that you,
in this book,
for recreation, for the daydream,
for the heart, for jousts in journals,
may find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell!

Now acting proud and now submissive,
By turns attentive and dismissive!
How languid, when no word he said,
How fiery, when he spoke, instead,
In letters of the heart how casual!

Habit is heaven's gift to us:
a substitute for happiness.

Thus heaven's gift to us is this:
That habit takes the place of bliss.

Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather
of mind got clarity new-found;
now free, I once more weave together
emotion, thought, and magic sound.

Я пережил свои желанья / I've lived to bury my desires

Я пережил свои желанья,
Я разлюбил свои мечты;
Остались мне одни страданья,
Плоды сердечной пустоты.

I've lived to bury my desires
and see my dreams corrode with rust
now all that's left are fruitless fires
that burn my empty heart to dust.

I am married and happy. My only wish is that nothing will change.

This, then, is the fate of your sons,
Oh Rome, oh celebrated power!
Singer of love, singer of the gods,
Tell me, what is glory?
A hollow rumbling from the grave, a praising voice,
A sound speeding from generation to generation?
Or under the shade of a smoky shelter
The tale of a wild gypsy?

But whom to love?
To trust and treasure?
Who won't betray us in the end?
And who'll be kind enough to measure
Our words and deeds as we intend?

He who has lived and thought can never
Help in his soul despising men,
He who has felt will be forever
Haunted by days he can't regain.
For him there are no more enchantments,
Him does the serpent of remembrance,
Him does repentance always gnaw.
All this will frequently afford
A great delight to conversations.

Light-minded society mercilessly persecutes in reality what it allows in theory

The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely In the flattering toils of philandery.

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.

Unrequited love is not an affront to man but raises him.

I loved you; even now I may confess, Some embers of my love their fire retain; But do not let it cause you more distress, I do not want to sadden you again. Hopeless and tongue tied, yet I loved you dearly With pangs the jealous and the timid know; So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely, I pray God grant another love you so.

No one who's lived and known reflection
Could help but scorn the human host.
No one who's sampled life's complexion
Could fail to fear his dead past's ghost.

What is renoun?more false than hope by dreams engendered.

There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord Put me to witness much for many years And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.

I foresee all: how I'll annoy
You deeply, by my sad confession:
What bitter scorn in your expression,
How proud the glance you'll employ!
What can I hope for? With what aim
Reveal my soul, and thereafter
Open myself to endless blame,
Prompting your malicious laughter?

Я помню чудное мгновенье:
Передо мной явилась ты,
Как мимолётное виденье,
Как гений чистой красоты...

I still recall the wondrous moment
When you appeared before my eyes,
Just like a fleeting apparition,
Just like pure beauty's distillation...

It's a lucky man who leaves early from life's banquet, before he's drained to the dregs his goblet - full of wine; yes, it's a lucky man who has not read life's novel to the end, but has been wise enough to part with it abruptly - like me with my Onegin.

My dreams, my dreams! What has become of their sweetness? What indeed has become of my youth?

I saw Derzhavin only once in my life but shall never forget that occasion. It was in 1815 at a public examination in the Lyceum. When we boys learned Derzhavin was coming, all of us grew excited. Delvig went out on the stairs to wait for him and kiss his hand, the hand that had written 'The Waterfall.' Derzhavin arrived. Derzhavin entered the vestibule, and Delvig heard him ask the janitor: 'Where is the privy here, my good fellow?' This prosaic question disenchanted Delvig, who canceled his intent and returned to the reception hall. Delvig told me the story with wonderful bonhomie and good humor.

I want to understand you,
I study your obscure language.