Leonid Andreyev Quotes

I play because my loneliness is very great, very deep- I fear it has no bottom at all! I stand on the edge of an abyss and hurl words, many heavy words, into it, but they fall without a sound. I hurl into it laughter, threats and moans. I spit into it. I fling into it heaps of stones and rocks. I throw mountains into it- ant still it remains silent and empty.

There is no beast more cruel than man.

I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy
what is it if not madness?

Rome fell silently to ruins. A New city rose in its place, and it was too erased by emptiness. Like phantom Giants, cities, kingdoms, and countries swiftly fell and disappeared into emptiness-- swallowed up in the black maw of the Infinite

Look at us, Lazarus, and share our joy. Is there anything stronger than love?"

And Lazarus looked. And for the rest of their life they kept on loving each other, but their passion grew gloomy and joyless, like those funeral cypresses whose roots feed on the decay of the graves and whose black summits in a still evening hour seek in vain to reach the sky. Thrown by the unknown forces of life into each other's embraces, they mingled tears with kisses, voluptuous pleasures with pain, and they felt themselves doubly slaves, obedient slaves to life, and patient servants of the silent Nothingness. Ever united, ever severed, they blazed like sparks and like sparks lost themselves in the boundless Dark.

Hitherto without being; hidden away in the womb of eternity; possessed neither of thought nor feeling; remote from the range of human ken
the Man bursts, in some unknown manner, the bars of non-existence, and announces with a cry the beginning of his brief life. In the night of non-existence there bursts forth also a little candle, lit by an unseen hand. Mark well its flame: for it is the life of that Man.

When a woman weeps, it is a man's shame.

No more did the frozen heart ache.

All perishes, all decays, all is born again.

The papers are full of murders
strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled.

Bread without love is like grass without salt
the stomach may be filled, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Life seemed to him to be a narrow cage, and her iron bars were many and dense, and there was only one way out.

I do not want to lie so rudely and ungracefully. I will lie to you elsewhere, when you least expect it, and that will be far more interesting for both of us.

Men are always murderers, and their calmness and generosity is the calmness of a well-fed animal, that knows itself out of danger.

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.

Ah well, 'tis the way of the world
births and deaths, births and deaths.

My loneliness is very great. I am not in need of friends, but I must speak of Myself and I have no one to speak to.

Yes, I do read books but only for one purpose: to learn how to hate man and to hold him in contempt.

Don't laugh at the voice of the stars. They are far away, their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark.

Do you not see the hand of God, which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the mountains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory?

Only the dead know the truth.

The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post.

He did not dissociate his thought from himself; he thought integrally, with the whole of his body; and each logical deduction forthwith became real to him - as happens only with very healthy or direct persons who have not yet turned thought into a pastime.

The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if you destroyed it today, it would rise up again the same as before.

See thou, whatsoever be thy name
whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me!