Mikhail Lermontov Quotes

True, we might never have arrived, but the fact is we did. If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worth worrying about so much. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

It was clear that he was in love, because he became even more gullible than before. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

And yet to possess a young soul that has barely developed is a source of very deep delight. It is like a flower whose richest perfume goes out to meet the first ray of the sun. One must pluck it at that very moment and, after inhaling its perfume to one's heart's content, discard it along the wayside on the chance that someone will pick it up. I sense in myself that insatiable avidity that devours everything in its path. And I regard the sufferings and joys of others merely in relation to myself, as food to sustain my spiritual strength. Passion is no longer capable of robbing me of my sanity. My ambition has been crushed by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in a new form, for ambition is nothing but lust for power, and my greatest pleasure I derive from subordinating everything around me to my will. Is it not both the first token of power and its supreme triumph to inspire in others the emotions of love, devotion and fear? Is it not the sweetest fare for our vanity to be the cause of pain or joy for someone without the least claim thereto? And what is happiness? Pride gratified. Could I consider myself better and more powerful than anyone else in the world, I would be happy. Were everybody to love me, I'd find in myself unending wellsprings of love. Evil begets evil; one's first suffering awakens a realization of the pleasure of tormenting another. The idea of evil cannot take root in the mind of man without his desiring to apply it in practice. Someone has said th ~ Mikhail Lermontov

He has studied all the live strings of the human heart in the same way as one studies the veins of a dead body. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Happiness comes the way the wind blows. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Note, my good doctor," said I, "that without fools, society would be a very tiresome place! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

If I had even been his friend, well and good: the artful indiscretion of the true friend is intelligible to everybody; but I only saw Pechorin once in my life - on the high-road - and, consequently, I cannot cherish towards him that inexplicable hatred, which, hiding its face under the mask of friendship, awaits but the death or misfortune of the beloved object to burst over its head in a storm of reproaches, admonitions, scoffs and regrets. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

My Home

My home is always there,in the heaven's vault,
Where one just hears lyre's sounds,
All with a spark of life have here their resort,
A bard has, too, a space around.

It gets the farthest stars by edges of his roof,
And from a wall to one another
There is a path whose measure can be proved
Not by a look, but by a soul, rather.

A sense of basic truth in every soul nests -
The seed that's sacred and eternal:
In flesh of time it always can embrace
Space, endless, and the century's kernel.


And mighty God has built for this exclusive sense
My home of the light and wonders,
And only here I'm doomed to sufferings at length,
And only here - to calmness. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

That disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

And this time
with ardent lips so lightly grazing
he kissed her trembling mouth, and then
answered her pleas, in language dazing
with sweet temptation; once again
those mighty eyes were fixed and gazing
deep into hers. He set her blazing.
He gleamed above her like a spark
or like a knife that finds its mark. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

If people would only reason a little more they would be convinced that life is not worth taking such a deal of trouble about. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Afraid of decision, I buried my finer feelings in the depths of my heart and they died there. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I prefer to doubt everything. Such a disposition does not preclude a resolute character. On the contrary, as far as I am concerned, I always advance more boldly when I don't know what is waiting me for me. After all, nothing worse than death can happen-and death you can't escape! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

My heart was tightening painfully, as it had after our first parting. Oh, how I was glad of this feeling! Could it be that youth wishes to return to me with its wholesome storms, or is this only its departing glance, its last gift, as a keepsake ... ? ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I felt somehow happy to be so high above the world - a childish feeling, I grant, but we can't help becoming children as we leave social conventions behind and come nearer to nature. All life's experience is shed from us and the soul becomes anew what it once was and will surely be again ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I am not capable of true friendship. One of the two friends is always the slave of the other, although, often, neither of the two admits this to himself. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

You too are an exile, I thought. You morn for the broad open steppes where you have room to spread your icy wings. Here you feel stifled and constricted, like an eagle that cries and beats against the bars of its iron cage. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate ... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd ... ~ Mikhail Lermontov

What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Most Russian girls usually only go in for Platonic attachments with never a thought of marriage. And Platonic love is the most troublesome sort. The princess, I fancy, is one of those women
who want to be amused, and two dull minutes with you will finish you for good. Your silence must rouse her curiosity, on conversation must leave her wanting more. You've got to play on her feelings all the time. She'll scorn public opinion a dozen times for your sake and call it a sacrifice, but she'll get her own back by
tormenting you, and then later simply declare that she can't stand you. If you don't get the upper hand, her first kiss won't give you the right to expect a second. She'll play with you till she's tired of it, then a couple of years later she'll marry some brute out of duty to Mama and persuade herself she's unhappy, because it was not heaven's will to unite her with the only man she ever loved (you that is) on account of his private's greatcoat, though under that thick grey coat there beat an ardent, noble heart.. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I've an insatiable craving inside me that consumes everything and makes me regard the sufferings and joys of others only in their relationship to me, as food to sustain my spiritual powers. I am no longer capable of loosing my head in love, Ambition has been crushed in me by circumstances, but it has come out in another way, for ambition is nothing but a lust for power and my chief delight is to dominate those around me. To inspire in others love, devotion, fear - isn't that the first symptom and the supreme triumph of power? To cause another person suffering or joy, having no right to do so - isn't that the sweetest food of pride? ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Love, like fire, goes out without fuel. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Do what you will, the heart hardens and the soul shrinks in upon itself. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

An unusual beginning must have an unusual end. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

We almost always forgive those we understand. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Women only love those that they don't know. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I have a congenital desire to contradict; my whole life is merely a chain of sad and unsuccessful contradictions to heart and mind. When faced with enthusiasm, I am seized by a midwinter freeze, and I suppose that frequent dealings with sluggish phlegmatics would have made a passionate dreamer. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Love's swooning and love's agitation-
for the first time the Demon now
experienced them; in shock and shiver
he thinks of fleeing - but no quiver
stirs in his wing! from his dimmed brow
a heavy teardrop, a slow river...
what a marvel! till today, quite near
that cell, there stands in wondrous fashion
a stone scorched by a tear of passion,
burnt through by an inhuman tear!... ~ Mikhail Lermontov

My love had grown one with my soul; it became darker, but did not go out ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

No good ever becomes of a man who forgets an old friend ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Ah! Nature is so fair a thing,
Clad with the Sunshine and the Spring! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

We practically always excuse things when we understand them ~ Mikhail Lermontov

He turned away and offered his hand in parting. She didn't take it or say anything. But from where I was behind the door I could see her face through the crack. I pitied her to see how deathly pale that sweet little face had gone. Hearing no answer, Pechorin took a few steps towards the door. He was trembling, and I might say I think he was fit to do what he'd threatened as a joke. That's the sort of man he was, there was no knowing him. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Disenchantment, like any other fashion, having started off among the elite had now been passed down to finish its days among the lower orders. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Can it be that my single purpose on this earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Since I have been living and breathing, fate has somehow always led me into the dramatic climaxes of others' lives, as if without me no one would be able to die, or to come to despair! I have been the necessary character of the fifth act; I have played the sorry role of executioner or traitor involuntarily. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

The story of a man's soul, however trivial, can be more interesting and instructive than the story of a whole nation ~ Mikhail Lermontov

For what did the creator prepare me,Why did he so terribly contradictThe hopes of my youth? ... ~ Mikhail Lermontov

We are parting for ever; yet you may be sure that I shall never love another. Upon you my soul has exhausted all its treasures, its tears, its hopes. She who has once loved you cannot look without a certain disdain upon other men, not because you have been better than they, oh, no! but in your nature there is something peculiar -- belonging to you alone, something proud and mysterious; in your voice, whatever the words spoken, there is an invincible power. No one can so constantly wish to be loved, in no one is wickedness ever so attractive, no one's glance promises so much bliss, no one can better make use of his advantages, and no one can be so truly unhappy as you, because no one endeavours so earnestly to convince himself of the contrary. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Tell me, does it amuse you very much to torture me? I ought to hate you. since I've known you, you've brought me nothing but suffering me..

Her voice trembled, she leaned towards
head upon my breast.

Perhaps that's why you loved me, I thought.
Moments of happiness one forgets, but sorrow never. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

In people's eyes I readPages of malice and sin. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Anyone who has chanced like me to roam through desolate mountains and studied at length their fantastic shapes and drunk the invigorating air of their valleys can understand why I wish to describe and depict these magic scenes for others. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I realized that there was no point or sense in chasing after happiness that had perished. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

On a Bare Hill's Top...

On a bare hill's top, in the North, wild and cold,
A lone pine-tree somewhere stands;
She dozes, swaying, all covered by snow
With a mantel from feet to a head.

She sees in her dreams: in a faraway desert,
In lands where the sun enters skies,
Alone and sad, on a rock's sunburnt lather,
A beautiful palm-tree abides. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

What is this eternity to me without you?What is the infinity of my domains?Empty ringing words,A spacious temple - without a divinity! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

And then we had one of those conversations which make no sense on paper, which you can't repeat and can't even remember. The sounds mean more than the words, like in an Italian opera. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Yes, such has been my lot since childhood. Everyone read signs of non-existent evil traits in my features. But since they were expected to be there, they did make their appearance. Because I was reserved, they said I was sly, so I grew reticent. I was keenly aware of good and evil, but instead of being indulged I was insulted and so I became spiteful. I was sulky while other children were merry and talkative, but though I felt superior to them I was considered inferior. So I grew envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate. My cheerless youth passed in conflict with myself and society, and fearing ridicule I buried my finest feelings deep in my heart, and there they died. I spoke the truth, but nobody believed me, so I began to practice duplicity. Having come to know society and its mainsprings, I became versed in the art of living and saw how others were happy without that proficiency, enjoying for free the favors I had so painfully striven for. It was then that despair was born in my heart--not the despair that is cured with a pistol, but a cold, impotent desperation, concealed under a polite exterior and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple; I had lost one half of my soul, for it had shriveled, dried up and died, and I had cut it off and cast it away, while the other half stirred and lived, adapted to serve every comer. No one noticed this, because no one suspected there had been another half. Now, however, you ha ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Ever since poets have written and women have read them (for which the poets should be most deeply grateful) women have been called angels so many times that, in very truth, in their simplicity of soul, they have believed the compliment, forgetting that, for money, the same poets have glorified Nero as a demigod ... ~ Mikhail Lermontov

For I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me and quicken my pulse. To be always on one's guard, to catch every look and the significance of every word, to guess intentions, foil conspiracies, pretend to be deceived and then to overthrow with one blow the whole vast edifice of artifices and designs raised with so much effort - that is what I call life. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

No, I'm not Byron, it's my role
To be an undiscovered wonder,
Like him, a persecuted wand'rer,
But furnished with a Russian soul.
I started sooner, sooner ending,
My mind will never reach so high;
Within my soul, beyond the mending,
My shattered aspirations lie:
Dark ocean answer me, can any
Plumb all your depth with skillful trawl?
Who will explain me to the many?
I ... perhaps God? No one at all? ~ Mikhail Lermontov

A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

She respects him as a father! And she will cheat on him like a husband! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you're satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me - is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone's reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right - isn't this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person's head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Oh vanity! You are the lever with which Archimedes wanted to raise the earthly globe! ~ Mikhail Lermontov

There is no feminine gaze that I would not forget at the sight of mountains covered with curly vegetation, and illumined by the southern sun, at the sight of the blue sky, or at the sound of a torrent that falls from crag to crag. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one's guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes - that's what I call life. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail, I don't know what you want." She didn't know what she wanted either.
He stood up then, power and grace combined. His shadow reached her before he did. His strength was enormous, but his touch was gentle as he pulled her to her feet. His hands slid up her arms, rested lightly on her shoulders, thumbs stroking the pulse in her neck. His touch sent warmth curling in her abdomen.
She was so small beside him, so fragile and vulnerable. "Do not try to leave me, little one. We need one another." His dark head bent lower, his mouth brushing her eyelids, sending little darts of fire licking along her skin. "You make me remember what living is," he whispered in his mesmerizing voice. His mouth found the corner of hers, and a jolt of electricity sizzled through her body.
Raven reached up to touch the shadowed line of his jaw, to place a hand on the heavy muscles of his chest in an attempt to put space between them. "Listen to me, Mikhail." Her voice was husky. "We both know what loneliness is, what real isolation can do to a person. It's beyond my imagination that I can be this close to you, physically touch you, and not be swamped with unwanted burdens. But we can't do this."
Amusement crept into the dark fire of his eyes, a hint of tenderness. His fingers curled around the nape of her neck. "Oh, I think we can." His black velvet voice was pure seduction, his smile frankly sensual. ~ Christine Feehan

They maintain that only a dictatorship - their dictatorship, of course - can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

But in fact Dostoevsky found and was capable of perceiving multi-leveledness and contradictoriness not in the spirit, but in the objective social world. In this social world, planes were not stages but opposing camps, and the contradictory relationships among them were not the rising or descending course of an individual personality, but the condition of society. The multi-leveledness and contradictoriness of social reality was present as an objective fact of the epoch. The ~ Mikhail Bakhtin

Some people say the reason I am not married is that I don't understand small business and the toughest small business in the world is a family. But when you are happy and feel every minute of your life, what is the reason to get married? ~ Mikhail Prokhorov

One exploiting sect, one people of leeches, one single devouring parasite closely and intimately bound together not only across national boundaries, but also across all divergences of political opinion ... [Jews have] that mercantile passion which constitutes one of the principle traits of their national character ~ Mikhail Bakunin

Do I express my thoughts lucidly?
I think I do.
What is my life? An absurdity. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Say you want me." His mouth moved over her throat, closed over her aching breast. Every strong pull sent an answering rush of liquid heat.
"You know I do." She pressed him to her, wound a leg around his.
She could barely breathe with her need, clawing at him to get closer, to crawl inside the shelter of his body, his mind, to feel his body in hers, taking possession as he was meant to, to feel his mouth at her breast, dragging her further into his world.
"All of it," he said hoarsely, his fingers probing the nest of tiny curls, stroking, caressing. "Mate with me my way."
She moved in a kind of anguish against his hand. "Yes, Mikhail." She was frantic for release, frantic to relieve him. She was consumed with the same red haze, not separating love from lust or hunger from need. She was on fire, hurting, aching, body and mind, even her soul in torment, not knowing where his wild, uninhibited emotions left off and hers began.
Mikhail lifted her easily with his enormous strength, slid her slowly, erotically down his clenching belly until she was pressed against the broad head of his raging erection. Her heat seared him, beckoned. Raven's arms slid around his neck, her legs around his hips, opening for him. Slowly he lowered her body over his, impaled her on the thick length of fire so that she surrounded him with such a moist, tight sheath he shuddered, somewhere beyond mere pleasure, a kind of erotic heaven and hell.
Her nails dug into his shoulders ~ Christine Feehan

It's nice to hold on to a holiday midnight a little longer than usual ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Eh, Nikanor Ivanovich!' the unknown man exclaimed soulfully. 'What are official and unofficial persons? It all depends on your point of view on the subject. It's all fluctuating and relative, Nikanor Ivanovich. Today I'm a unofficial person, and tomorrow, lo and behold, I'm an official one! And it happens the other way round -oh, how it does! - Chapter 9 ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Like that guy could make Yuri do anything he doesn't want to," Mikhail scoffed. "Yuri could break him in half if he wanted."
"Or fold him in half," I offered. "Which is probably more along the lines of what Chuluun was thinking when he asked for permission. ~ Mary Calmes

In the first few seconds an aching sadness wrenched his heart, but it soon gave way to a feeling of sweet disquiet, the excitement of gypsy wanderlust ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

It is given to all of Dostoevsky's characters to "think and seek higher things"; in each of them there is a "great and unresolved thought"; all of them must, before all else, "get a thought straight." And in this resolution of a thought (an idea) lies their entire real life and their own personal unfinalizability. If ~ Mikhail Bakhtin

The darkness that had come in from the Mediterranean covered the city so detested by the procurator ... ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

For an addict there is one pleasure of which no one can deprive him - his ability to spend his time in absolute solitude. And solitude means deep, significant thought; it means, calm, contemplation - and wisdom. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People's Stick. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

All the words he used in the beginning were gutter words. He heard them and stored them in his brain. Now, as I walk in the street, I look at dogs with secret horror. WHo knows what is hidden in their heads? ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

She had inadvertently released the monster. He hoped she was as strong as he believed her to be, because he had no idea what he was capable of anymore.
Mikhail closed his eyes against his self-loathing. He had learned centuries ago that there was little point. And this time he didn't want to fight it. This was not simply a strong sexual attraction he felt; it was far more than that. It was something primal, something deep within him calling to something deep within her. Perhaps she craved the wildness in him as he craved the laughter and compassion in her. Did it matter? There would be no escape for either of them. ~ Christine Feehan

Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

In effect, according to Lenin, socialism and democracy are indivisible. By gaining democratic freedoms the working masses come to power. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

I like to grasp the initiative and not give my opponent peace of mind. ~ Mikhail Tal

Literature has become my life. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

The privilege of ruling would be in the hands of the skilled and the learned, with a wide scope left for profitable crooked deals carried on by the Jews, who would be attracted by the enormous extension of the international speculations of the national banks. ~ Mikhail Bakunin

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

If you want Russia to be a real fully developed partner, then America should invest in Russia and activate Russia as a strong nation. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

The forests of Russia and Brazil are the lungs of the Earth. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

If the Russian word " perestroika " has easily entered the international lexicon, this is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring, i.e. progressive development, a fundamental change. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

I made mistakes. My supporters and I failed to prevent a main like [Mikhail] Saakashvili from acquiring absolute power. I should have criticized him earlier on. ~ Irakli Okruashvili

But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid. ~ Mikhail Bulgakov

Politics is my second love, next to my love for Raisa [Gorbacheva]. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

Even a poor plan is better than no plan at all. ~ Mikhail Chigorin