Nikolai Lantsov Quotes

I wish your donkey well, but you should always feel free to correct me when I make mistakes.'
'Yes, Your Highness,' Isaak said uncomfortably.
'Don't worry,' said Nikolai as they turned their backs on the gardens and headed toward the Grand Palace. 'It doesn't happen often. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Jesper couldn't quite believe he was having a conversation with the Sturmhond. The privateer was a legend. He'd broken countless blockades on behalf of the Ravkans and there were rumors that… "Do you really have a flying ship? blurted Jesper.
"No."
"Oh."
"I have several."
"Take me with you. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Her time is better spent with me. The thorn wood is a path you walk alone, boy king."
"But it's a very arduous path," Nikolai said. "Who will carry my snacks? ~ Leigh Bardugo

He would not beg Zoya to stay. It was not in his nature to plead with anyone, and that was not the pact they shared. They did not look to each other for comfort. They kept each other marching. They kept each other strong. So he would not find another excuse to get her talking again. He would not tell her he was afraid to be left alone with the thing he might become, and he would not ask her to leave the lamp burning, a child's bit of magic to ward off the dark.
But he was relieved when she did it anyway. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Do good works or commission an opera house or just take it out and gaze at it longingly when you think of the handsome prince you might have made your own. For the record, I favor the latter option, preferably paired with copious tears and the recitation of bad poetry. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I'm used to being the center of attention wherever I go. I've been told I could charm the shoes off a racehorse midstride, and yet you seem impervious. ~ Leigh Bardugo

My king lies bleeding. I am his subject and his soldier, and I come to fight for him. ~ Leigh Bardugo

There had been a time when words had been the only place he could find solace. No book ever lost patience with him or told him to sit still. When his tutors had thrown up their hands in frustration, it was the library that had taught Nikolai military history, strategy, chemistry, astronomy. Each spine had been an open door away whispering, Come in, come in. Here is the land you've never seen before. Here is a place to hide when you're frightened, to play when you're bored, to rest when the world seems unkind. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Who are you, and what are you playing at?"
"Nikolai Lantsov, but please don't make me recite my titles again. It's no fun for anybody, and the only important one is 'prince.'"
"And what about Sturmhond?" I asked.
"I'm also Sturmhond, commander of the Volkvolny, scourge of the True Sea."
"Scourge?"
"Well, I'm vexing at the very least."
I shook my head. "Impossible."
"Improbable."
"This is not the time to try to be entertaining. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I know the pain is bad," said Elizaveta as she drifted through the thicket. "But the thorns will keep you from forcing the darkness to recede. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Most women suffer thorns for the sake of the flowers, but we who wield power adorn ourselves with flowers to hide the sting of our thorns ~ Leigh Bardugo

Nikolai had been told that hope was dangerous, had been warned of it many times. But he'd never believed that. Hope was the wind that came from nowhere to fill your sails and carry you home. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I think fatigue suits you, Zoya. The pallor. The shadows beneath your eyes. You look like a heroine in a novel. "
"I look like a woman about to step on your foot. "
"Now, now. You're managing remarkably well. And the smiling hasn't killed you yet."
"Yet. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I'm also Sturmhond, commander of the Volkvony, scourge of the True Sea.'
'Scourge?'
'Well, I'm vexing at the very least. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Not bad looking? He's damnably handsome. Brave in battle, smart as a whip. An excellent dancer, oh, and an even better shot. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I was impressed, and also unnerved. Being around Nikolai was always like this, watching him shift and change, revealing secrets as he went. He reminded me of the wooden nesting dolls I'd played with as a child. Except instead of getting smaller, he just kept getting grander and more mysterious. Tomorrow, he'd probably tell me he'd built a pleasure palace on the moon. Tough to get to, but quite a view. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I took a breath. "Your highness - "
"Nikolai," he corrected. "But I've also been known to answer to 'sweetheart' or 'handsome. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I don't think - "

"Clearly. Why start now?"

Ivan's face flushed in anger. "You don't - "

Sturmhond leaned in close, the laughter gone from his voice, his easy demeanor replaced by something with a sword's edge. "I don't care who you are on land. On this ship, you're nothing but ballast. Unless I put you over the side, in which case you're shark bait. I like shark. Cooks up tough, but it makes for a little variety. Remember that the next time you have a mind to threaten anyone aboard this vessel." He stepped back, his jolly manner restored. "Go on now, shark bait. Scurry back to your master."

"I won't forget this, Sturmhond," Ivan spat.

The captain rolled his eyes. "That's the idea. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I saw the prince when I was in Os Alta," said Ekaterina. "He's not bad looking."
"Not bad looking?" said another voice. "He's damnably handsome."
Luchenko scowled. "Since when - "
"Brave in battle, smart as a whip." Now the voice seemed to be coming from above us. Luchenko craned his neck, peering into the trees. "An excellent dancer," said the voice. "Oh, and an even better shot."
"Who - " Luchenko never got to finish. A blast rang out, and a tiny black hole appeared between his eyes.
I gasped. "Imposs - "
"Don't say it," muttered Mal. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Who are you?" Mal asked furiously.
"That's a complicated question."
"Actually, it's pretty straightforward," I said, springing to my feet. "But it does require telling the truth. Something you seem thoroughly incapable of."
"Oh, I can do it," Sturmhond said, shaking water from one of his boots. "I'm just not very good at it. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Ravka is grateful for your service," Sturmhond said as they turned to go. "And so is the crown." He waved once. In the late afternoon light, with the sun behind him, he looked less like a privateer and more like... but that was just silly. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Your highness - "
"Nikolai," he corrected. "But I've also been known to answer to 'sweetheart' or 'handsome.'"
Mal whirled, but I silenced him with a pleading look.
"You need to stop that right now, Nikolai," I said. "Or I'll knock those princely teeth out myself. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Is that all?' said Zoya. 'Will you be taking up juggling as well?'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Nikolai replied. 'I already know how to juggle. Literally and figuratively. ~ Leigh Bardugo

But if you loved a thing, the work was never done ~ Leigh Bardugo

There are rumors that you died on the Fold. People have been selling off parts of you all over Ravka and West Ravka for months. You're quite the good luck charm."
"Those are supposed to be my fingers?"
"Knuckles, toes, fragments of rib."
I felt sick. I looked around, hoping to spot Mal, needing to see something familiar.
"Of course," Nikolai continued, "if half of those were really your toes, you'd have about a hundred feet. But superstition is a powerful thing. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Lay down the thorn, boy king. Haven't you earned a bit of rest? Aren't you tired?'

He was. Saints, he was. He thought he had grown used to his scars, but he had never grasped how much of his will it would take to hide them. He had fought and sacrificed and bled. He had gone long days without rest and long nights without comfort. All for Ravka, all for an ideal he would never attain and a country that would never care. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Say something spiteful."
"Why?" she asked faintly.
"Because I'm fairly certain I'm hallucinating and in my dreams you're much nicer."
"You're an idiot, Nikolai. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Do that thing you do where you use too many words to say something simple and confuse the issue. ~ Leigh Bardugo

In reality, freedom is aristocratic, not democratic. With sorrow we must recognize the fact that freedom is dear only to those men who think creatively. It is not very necessary to those who do not value thinking. In the so-called democracies, based on the principle of popular sovereignty, a considerable proportion of the people are those who have not yet become conscious of themselves as free beings, bearing within themselves the dignity of freedom. Education to freedom is something still ahead of us, and this will not be achieved in a hurry. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Dostoevski's The Double is his best work though an obvious and shameless imitation of Gogol's Nose. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I shall think soon that what people say is true: every woman is possessed by her own peculiar devil of curiosity ~ Nikolai Gogol

In this holy russia of ours everything is infected by a mania for imitation, and everyone apes his superior ~ Nikolai Gogol

Internal discord reflects external disunion, that is, the separation of the learned and intellectual classes from the people. Intelligence without feeling becomes the knowledge of evil without any desire to root it out, and a knowledge of good without any wish to promote it. ~ Nikolai F. Fedorov

Taras Bulba:
I brought you into this world and I can take you out.

Taras:
My son, why? Why?

Andrei Bulba:
I did what I had to do.

Taras:
From the day I plunged you in the river to give you life, I loved you as I loved the steppes. You were my pride! I gave you life. It is on me to take it away from you.

Taras:
Put your faith in your sword and your sword in the Pole. ~ Nikolai Gogol

At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Would I be healed now if you gave me your blood, Nikolai?"
"Are you asking me for it?"
"If I were, would you give it to me? ~ Lara Adrian

We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion. ~ Nikolai Bukharin

He hesitated. Don't you see? You're like a favorite painting. A found masterpiece, I loved both for things remembered and those newly discovered. ~ Amanda Gray

Creative experience foreshadows a new Heaven and a new Earth. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

The World is not an idea as asserted by philosophers who have dedicated their entire lives to the exploration of ideas. First and foremost the world is passion. But passion is associated with sadness. Sadness does not only arise from death which makes us face the Eternity, but also from life which causes us to confront the Time. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

The fair-haired man was one of those people in whose character there is at first sight a certain obstinacy. Before you can open your mouth, they are already prepared to argue and, it seems, will never agree to anything that is clearly contrary to their way of thinking, will never call a stupid thing smart, and in particular will never dance to another man's tune; but it always ends up that there is a certain softness in their character, that they will agree precisely to what they had rejected, will call a stupid thing smart, and will then go off dancing their best to another man's tune - in short, starts out well, ends in hell. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Fear is never a good counselor and victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

For every man there are certain words that are as if closer and more intimate to him than any others. And often, unexpectedly, in some remote, forsaken backwater, some deserted desert, one meets a man whose warming conversation makes you forget the pathlessness of your paths, the homelessness of your nights, and the contemporary world full of people's stupidity, of deceptions for deceiving man. Forever and always an evening spent in this way will vividly remain with you, and all that was and that took place then will be retained by the faithful memory: who was there, and who stood where, and what he was holding
the walls, the corners, and every trifle. ~ Nikolai Gogol

A word aptly uttered or written cannot be cut away by an axe. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The room into which Ivan Ivanovich stepped was quite dark, because the shutters were closed and the sunbeam that penetrated through a hole in the shutter was broken into rainbow hues and painted upon the opposite wall a multicolored landscape of thatched roofs, trees, and clothes hanging in the yard, but all upside down. This made an uncanny twilight in the whole room. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Self-realization is a process of permanent auto-creation, an elaboration of the new man at the expense of the old. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Not the stout balding man. Not a Nikolai. A Vronsky. ~ Janie Chang

The "laughter through tears of sorrow" that Pushkin noted elsewhere in his work is precisely laughter. The images it produces are too deeply ambiguous to bear any social message. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Well, in this case,' said Chichikov, 'I haven't lied by even this much,' and with his thumb he marked off the very tip of his little finger.
'You Jesuit, you Jesuit! I'll bet you anything you're talking rot!'
'Listen, this is insulting! What's going on, anyway? Why do you think I have to be lying? ~ Nikolai Gogol

Woman is in love with the devil. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Have you even held a command? Nikolai asked. I'd once led a seminar of junior mapmakers, but I didn't think that was what he meant. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Every one to his taste, one man loves the priest and another the priest's wife, as the proverb says. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The net of it is, we can't count on any cooperation out of Sergei Yakut. He basically told me to shove it, and that was before I called him a sick fuck in need of a muzzle and choke collar."
"Jesus, Niko," Gideon sighed, probably, on the other end of the line, scrubbing his hand through his spiky blond hair in frustration. "You really said that to him - to a Gen One? You're damn lucky he didn't tear your tongue out before he sent you on your way."
Probably true, Nikolai acknowledged to himself. And he'd have lost more than just his tongue if Yakut knew the kind of lust he had been feeling for Renata. "You know I'm allergic to ass-kissing, even if the ass in question happens to be Gen One. If this was a total public relations mission, you picked the wrong guy."
"No shit." Gideon chuckled around another low curse. "You coming back in to Boston, then?"
"I see no reason to linger. Unless you figure Lucan will look the other way if I decide to go back and put a torch to Yakut's house of horrors. Put him out of business, at least for a while."
He was kidding . . . mostly. ~ Lara Adrian

Levin felt that in his soul, in the very bottom of his soul, his brother Nikolai, despite the ugliness of his life, was not more in the wrong than those who despised him. ~ Leo Tolstoy

True life is creativity, not development: it is the freedom for creative acts, for creative fire, rather than necessity and the heaviness of congealing self-perfection. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

I am very fond of the theatre. If I have only a kopeck in my pocket, I always go there. Most of my fellow-officials are uneducated boors, and never enter a theatre unless one throws free tickets at their head. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Don't blame the mirror if your face is faulty. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Life has been given us to enjoy. ~ Nikolai Leskov

Suddenly he stopped as if rooted outside the doors of one house; before his eyes an inexplicable phenomenon occurred: a carriage stopped at the entrance; the door opened; a gentleman in a uniform jumped out, hunching over, and ran up the stairs. What was Kovalev's horror as well as amazement when he recognized him as his own nose! ~ Nikolai Gogol