Nikolai Quotes

He was an artist of rare ability, a self-taught artist, without teachers or schools, principles and rules, carried away only by the thirst for perfection, and treading a path indicated by his own instincts, for reasons unknown, perchance, even to himself. Through some lofty and secret instinct he perceived the presence of a soul in every object. ~ Nikolai Gogol

On the bottom staff - the taste of earth, worms, and dust; the smell of dead leaves and frankincense. On the top - the luminosity of awareness making sense of transience and predestination. Three quiet major chords marked the moment of death, because death was sweet. It was our true home, the home we'd left and been trying to get back to. It's what we had passed through before and would pass through again, a moment of truth that suspended the weight of thought, the weight of the will to inhabit a dead universe. ~ Nikolai Grozni

There is something servile in the interpretation of sin as crime which infringes the will of God and calls for legal proceedings on the part of God. Sin is dividedness, a state of deficiency, incompleteness, dissociation, enslavement, hatred, but it is not disobedience and not formal violation of the will of God. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Man is such a wondrous being that it is never possible to count up all his merits at once. The more you study him, the more new particulars appear, and their description would be endless. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Conscience is the spiritual, supernatural principle in man, and it is not of social origin at all. It is rather the perversion and confusion of conscience that is of social origin. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs? ~ Nikolai Gogol

To tell about him, one should be French, because only the people of that nation manage to explain to others what they don't understand themselves. ~ Nikolai Leskov

Watch yourself, Nikolai," Mal said softly. "Princes bleed just like other men."
Nikolai plucked an invisible piece of dust from his sleeve. "Yes," he said. "They just do it in better clothes. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I think one of the reasons [Nikolai] Medtner hasn't had a chance is that his music needs very, very committed performances. If you play his works passively, the juice of his music is really not going to be extracted - it's simply not going to come out. ~ Marc-Andre Hamelin

The physical union of the sexes ... only intensifies man's sense of solitude. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. [ ... ] The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power ... the Kingdom of God is anarchy. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

How sweet he is!" said Countess Marya, looking at the baby and playing with him. "This is what I don't understand, Nicolas," she turned to her husband. "How is it you don't understand the charm of these charming little miracles?" "I just don't, I can't," said Nikolai, looking at the baby with a cold gaze. "A piece of meat. ~ Leo Tolstoy

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

Tomorrow at seven o'clock a strange phenomenon will occur: the earth is going to sit on the moon. This has also been written about by the noted English chemist Wellington. I confess, I felt troubled at heart when I pictured to myself the extraordinary delicacy and fragility of the moon. For the moon is usually made in Hamburg, and made quite poorly. I'm surprised England doesn't pay attention to this. It's made by a lame cooper, and one can see that the fool understands nothing about the moon. He used tarred rope and a quantity of cheap olive oil, and that's why there's a terrible stench all over the earth, so that you have to hold your nose. And that's why the moon itself is such a delicate sphere that people can't live on it, and now only noses live there. And for the same reason, we can't see our own noses, for they're all in the moon. ~ Nikolai Gogol

They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know. ~ Nikolai Gogol

I poisoned my skin," Genya said harshly, "my lips. So that every time he touched me-" She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. "Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body." She clenched her fists. "He brought this on himself."
"But the poison would have affected you too," Nikolai said.
"I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time." Her fists clenched. "It was well worth it."
Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?"
Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Countless as the sands of sea are human passions, and not all of them are alike, and all of them, base and noble alike, are at first obedient to man and only later on become his terrible masters. ~ Nikolai Gogol

A quiet room with cockroaches peeping out like prunes from every corner ... ~ Nikolai Gogol

The world is changing," said Nikolai, the steel edge emerging in his voice. "We change with it, or there will be nothing to remember us but dust. ~ Leigh Bardugo

To the door of an inn in the provincial town of N. there drew up a smart britchka - a light spring-carriage of the sort affected by bachelors, retired lieutenant-colonels, staff-captains, land-owners possessed of about a hundred souls, and, in short, all persons who rank as gentlemen of the intermediate category. In the britchka was seated such a gentleman - a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young. His arrival produced no stir in the town, and was accompanied by no particular incident, beyond that a couple of peasants who happened to be standing at the door of a dramshop exchanged a few comments with reference to the equipage rather than to the individual who was seated in it. "Look at that carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan." With that the conversation ended. Presently, as the britchka was approaching the inn, it was met by a young man in a pair of very short, very tight breeches of white dimity, a quasi-fashionable frockcoat, and a dickey fastened with a pistol-shaped bronze tie-pin. The young man turned his head as he passed the britchka and eyed it attentively; after which he clapped his hand to his cap (which was in danger of being removed by the wind) and resumed his way. On the vehicle reaching the inn door, its occupant ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

Despair at not reaching ideal perfection are among the reasons given. Again it is said ~ Nikolai Gogol

I shall laugh my bitter laugh. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Slowly, Genya stood, and silence fell around her. "How old are you, Yuri ?"

"Eighteen, moi soverenyi"

"When i was a year older than you, the Darkling set his mosnters on me, creatures born of the power you venerate so much. They had a taste for human flesh. He had to force them to stop."

"Then he was not so cruel-"

Genya held up a hand, and Nikolai was glad to see Yuri shut is mouth. "The Darkling didn't want me to die. He wante me to live - like this."

"More fool of him,"sais Nikolai quietly, "to let such soldier survive. ~ Leigh Bardugo

I am very fond of the modest manner of life of those solitary owners of remote villages, who in Little Russia are commonly called "old-fashioned," who are like tumbledown picturesque little houses, delightful in their simplicity and complete unlikeness to the new smooth buildings whose walls have not yet been discolored by the rain, whose roofs are not yet covered with green lichen, and whose porch does not display its bricks through the peeling stucco. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

Myst hasn't returned yet, But you know that, or else you'd both be naked and fornicating on the front lawn"
"The night's young. Give us time, and it was a field a mile away."
A Valkyrie and Nikolai Wroth pg 322 ~ Kresley Cole

But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Because if we were all created idealists, then life was bound to be one relentless disappointment. But then, there was also music. We unlearned the lies with one hand and repeated them with the other. ~ Nikolai Grozni

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

Weakness is a guise. Wear it when they need to know you're human, but never when you feel it. ~ Leigh Bardugo

The Lord grant we may all be tillers of the soil. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Control and violence that is best reflected in the state, are evil in themselves. In this knowledge lies the great truth of anarchism. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Never has a gift for pining," Nikolai said. "Though I do like to show off my profile by staring mournfully out of windows. ~ Leigh Bardugo

And could a man sink to such triviality, such meanness, such nastiness? Could he change so much? And is it true to life? Yes, it is all true to life. All this can happen to a man. The ardent youth of today would start back in horror if you could show him his portrait in old age. As you pass from the soft years of youth into harsh, hardening manhood, be sure you take with you on the way all the humane emotions, do not leave them on the road: you will not pick them up again afterwards! ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

I have a problem,' said Nikolai Nikolaivitch Asterinov, getting to his feet. 'I have a problem, that I wish to share with this, our science fiction writers' collective. We are to concoct a race of aliens against which humanity can unite. Spacefaring aliens, no?' 'Yes, of course.' 'Then this is my problem. We know the party line. The philosophy of the party has always been that capitalistic Western fantasies of launching rockets to other planets will always be doomed by the internal contradictions of the competitive inefficiency of capitalism itself. Only the combined and unified effort of a whole people would be able to achieve so monumental an achievement as interstellar flight. No capitalist race could ever achieve something as sophisticated as interstellar flight; only communists could do this. Now, how can it be that these evil aliens are able to build spaceships and fly across the void? Surely they are not communists? ~ Adam Roberts

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

This world is full of the most outrageous nonsense. Sometimes things happen which you would hardly think possible. ~ Nikolai Gogol

He granted its due share to everything equally, drawing from everything only what was beautiful in it, and in the end left himself only the divine Raphael as a teacher. So a great poetic artist, having read many different writings filled with much delight and majestic beauty, in the end might leave himself, as his daily reading, only Homer's Iliad, having discovered that there is nothing that has not already been reflected in its profound and great perfection. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

In Russia, war will never be popular with the profound masses of people. Revolutionary ideas are more in their taste than a victory over Germany. But one does not escape one's destiny... - Russian Minister of the Interior, Nikolai Maklakov, on 29 July 1914. ~ Nikolai Maklakov

I'm not keen on riot. Unless they involve dancing, but I believe those are usually referred to as parties. ~ Leigh Bardugo

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

It's the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

Our attitude towards evil must be freed from hatred, and has itself need to be enlightened in character ... Satan rejoices when he succeeds in inspiring us with diabolical feelings to himself. It is he who wins when his own methods are used against himself ... A continual denunciation of evil and its agents merely encourages its growth in the world a truth sufficiently revealed in the Gospels, but to which we are persistently blind. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The mind is a strange thing: it works in secret. Oftentimes the most important decisions in life are made while you're not paying attention. ~ Nikolai Grozni

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

I don't know why people are so afraid of dying. It only takes a moment. ~ Nikolai Grozni

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all ~ 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

There are secrets in the omniverse one cannot know... ~ Nikolai Loskov

Nevsky Avenue
Here you come across moustaches so wonderful that neither pen nor brush can do justice to them, moustaches to which the best years of a lifetime have been devoted-the object of long hours of vigil by day and by night; moustaches upon which all the perfumes of Arabia have been lavished, the most exquisite scents and essences, and which have been anointed with the rarest and most precious pomades; moustaches which are wrapped up for the night in the most delicate vellum; moustaches for which their possessors show a most touching affection and which are the envy of all those who behold them. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai stroked her cheek, then wrapped her in his embrace. "You're safe," he said tenderly beside her ear. "I've got you, and I'm going to keep you safe. ~ Lara Adrian

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

They christened the child, whereat he wept and made a grimace, as though he foresaw that he was to be a titular councillor. In ~ Nikolai Gogol

But to everything in this world there comes an end; there even comes an end to the torments suffered in those intermediate states of transition when the last secret tear of one's soul is bitterly swallowed, and the crisis passes, resolving itself into some new sort of phase, which even as it comes into existence is fated in turn to pass away, to disappear in the eternal changing of the times and seasons. ~ Nikolai Bukharin

Once you get a brother, you don't give him up easy. ~ Orson Scott Card

Why, then, make a show of the poverty of our life and our sad imperfection, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state? But what if this is in the writer's nature, and his own imperfection grieves him so, and the makeup of his talent is such, that he can only portray the poverty of our life, unearthing people from the backwoods, from the remote corners of the state! So here we are again in the backwoods, again we have come out in some corner! ~ Nikolai Gogol

There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

Youth is feeling seventy years old, misanthropic, and ready to die at fifteen ~ Nikolai Grozni

Utopias now appear much more realizable than one used to think. We are now faced with a different new worry: How to prevent their realization. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

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

You see, wisdom does not come with grey hairs. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

being disappeared who was protected by none, dear to none, interesting to none, and who never even attracted to himself the attention of those students of human nature who omit no opportunity of thrusting a pin through a common fly, and examining it under the microscope. ~ Nikolai Gogol

A time of famine and poverty will come and the people as a whole as well as every individual in it will suffer. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

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

God is a reality of spirit He cannot be conceived as an object, not even as the very highest object. God is not to be found in the world of objects. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Mathematical theories have sometimes been used to predict phenomena that were not confirmed until years later. For example, Maxwell's equations, named after physicist James Clerk Maxwell, predicted radio waves. Einstein's field equations suggested that gravity would bend light and that the universe is expanding. Physicist Paul Dirac once noted that the abstract mathematics we study now gives us a glimpse of physics in the future. In fact, his equations predicted the existence of antimatter, which was subsequently discovered. Similarly, mathematician Nikolai Lobachevsky said that "there is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not someday be applied to the phenomena of the real world. ~ Clifford A. Pickover

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

God desires that man should be. God does not wish to be alone. The meaning of existence is the conquest of loneliness, the acquisition of kinship and nearness. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

What terrible harm Wagner did by interspersing his pages of genius with harmonic and modulatory outrages to which both young and old are gradually becoming accustomed and which have procreated d'Indy and Richard Strauss. ~ Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

and what in earlier years would have brought animation to my face, arousing laughter and incessant chatter, now slips past me and my immobile lips preserve an impassive silence. Oh my youth! Oh my freshness! ~ Nikolai Gogol

The bourgeois takes economic power very seriously, and often worships it quite unselfishly. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

Our task is to make nature, the blind force of nature, into an instrument of universal resuscitation and to become a union of immortal beings. ~ Nikolai F. Fedorov

Wonderful, darling Oksana, allow me to kiss you!" the encouraged blacksmith said and pressed her to him with the intention of snatching a kiss; but Oksana withdrew her cheeks, which were a very short distance from the blacksmith's lips, and pushed him away.
"What more do you want? He's got honey and asks for a spoon! Go away, your hands are harder than iron. And you smell of smoke. I suppose you've made me all sooty. ~ Nikolai Gogol

And sank into the profound slumber which comes only to such
fortunate folk as are troubled neither with mosquitoes nor fleas nor excessive activity of brain. ~ Nikolai Gogol

As you pass from the tender years of youth into harsh and embittered manhood, make sure you take with you on your journey all the human emotions! Don't leave them on the road, for you will not pick them up afterwards! ~ Nikolai Gogol

I think that it is one of the most refined joys of this world to interchange thoughts, feelings, and impressions." (H'm! ~ Nikolai Gogol

Business was successfully concluded. But - strange is man: he was deeply mortified at being in disfavour with the very people whom he did not respect, and whose vanity and love of dress he derided. ~ Nikolai Gogol

It must be noted that this Person of Consequence had only lately become a person of consequence, and until recently had been a person of no consequence. Though, indeed, his position even now was not reckoned of consequence in comparison with others of still greater consequence. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The parental eye shed no tears when the time for leave-taking came; a half-rouble in copper coins was given to the boy by way of pocket-money and for sweets, and what is more important, the following admonition:

"Mind now, Pavlusha, be diligent, don't fool or gad about, and above all please your teachers and superiors. If you please your superiors, then you will be popular and get ahead of everyone even if you lag behind in knowledge and talent. Don't be too friendly with the other boys, they will teach you no good; but if you do make friends, cultivate those who are better off and might be useful. Don't invite or treat anyone, but conduct yourself in such a way as to be treated yourself, and above all, take care of and save your pennies, that is the most reliable of all things. A comrade or friend will cheat you and be the first to put all the blame on you when in a fix, but the pennies won't betray you in any difficulty. With money you can do anything in the world."

Having admonished his son thus, the father took leave of him and trundled off home on his 'magpie'. Though from that day the son never set eyes on him more, his words and admonitions had sunk deep into his soul. ~ Nikolai Gogol

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

A Russian peasant scratching the back of his head means many different things. ~ Nikolai Gogol

We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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

Woman is in love with the devil. ~ Nikolai Gogol

The war educated a generation of believers in force. The demons of hatred and murder then released continue their activity. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Nikolai had expected to have to fight the urge to torture the progeny of his father's murderer, but he had never anticipated fighting the urge to fuck her. ~ Marissa Clarke

Watch out, brother,' his professor had told him more than once, 'you have talent; it would be a sin to ruin it. But you're impatient. Some one thing entices you, some one thing takes your fancy––and you occupy yourself with it, and the rest can rot, you don't care about it, you don't even want to look at it. Watch out you don't turn into a fashionable painter. Even now your colors are beginning to cry a bit too loudly. Your drawing is imprecise, and sometimes quite weak, the line doesn't show; you go for fashionable lighting, which strikes the eye at once. Watch out or you'll fall into the English type. Beware. You already feel drawn to the world: every so often I see a showy scarf on your neck, a glossy hat ... It's enticing, you can start painting fashionable pictures, little portraits for money. But that doesn't develop talent, it ruins it. Be patient. Ponder over every work, drop showiness––let the others make money. You won't come out the loser. ~ Nikolai Gogol

But until now I did not understand; everything was in a sort of mist. And I believe it all arose from believing that the brain is in the head. It's not so at all; it comes with the wind from the direction of the Caspian Sea. ~ Nikolai Gogol

History is not an objective empirical datum, it is a myth. ~ Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Any reason you didn't tell me Myst married a general in the Forbearer army, more specifically a vampire?"
"Lookit, I didn't want to distract you from your job," Regin said. "This Hie is your Big Thing. And I know when I first found out, I was seriously, fucking, shrieking, distracted. I mean, I knew you would never get freaked out - well, at least, you wouldn't used to - but I thought it would be prudent to just hold off a few days. It was my idea, not Myst's."
"This connection might have been nice to know in certain situations, Regin. For instance, that vampire in Antarctica that you almost killed is now our brother-in-law!"
"No way! Nikolai Wroth's brother?" A pause. "But does that matter? Can't we still kill him? I wouldn't have told anyone if you wouldn't have. What happens in the South Pole, stays in the - ~ Kresley Cole

We are standing on the threshold of a world-epoch of religious creativeness, on a cosmic divide. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev