Tsar Nicholas Quotes

The man who did the shooting was a civilian, Peter Kakhovsky, a gifted intellectual of extreme purity of motive in whom the conviction of the necessity of regicide burned with a gem-like flame. Determined to kill, expecting to die, this brilliant and terrible apparition, his slender form bundled up in a sheepskin coat, his delicate features surmounted by a shabby top hat, shot to kill with that indiscriminate ruthlessness which was later to characterise a whole generation of revolutionary terrorists. If he could not yet murder the Tsar, he would do the next best thing. ~ Edward Crankshaw

Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is no more than a lemon-colored speck against the sunrise. ~ Sarah Miller

Given the gruesome fate of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, and the fact that five of the previous 12 Romanov rulers were also murdered, it is easy to regard Russia's imperial dynasty as cursed. ~ Saul David

Yes, what would Russia be without me?" he [Tsar Nicholas I] said to himself, again sensing the approach of the unpleasant feeling. "Yes, what would, not just Russia, but Europe be without me?" And he remembered his brother-in-law, the king of Prussia, and his weakness and stupidity and shook his head. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I'll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing. ~ Sarah Miller

I wish I wasn't an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I'm sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see me, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, not the caboose on a train of grand duchesses. Someday, I promise myself, no one will be able to hear my name or look at my picture and suppose they know all about me. Someday I will do something bigger than what I am. ~ Sarah Miller

There was a happy irony in the first cousin of the autocratic Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II (with whom George bore a striking resemblance) furthering British democracy. ~ Paul Ham

The constant, obvious flattery, contrary to all evidence, of the people around him [Tsar Nicholas I] had brought him to the point that he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer conformed his actions and words to reality, logic, or even simple common sense, but was fully convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and inconsistent with each other, became sensible, just, and consistent with each other only because he gave them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Music herself should be silent when Nicholas speaks. (on why he had stopped playing during a performance with Tsar Nicholas I in attendance) ~ Franz Liszt

It's different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens. ~ Sarah Miller

We should be used to it," Tatiana reasons. "There have always been lines separating us from the rest of the world, whether they were satin ribbons or iron rails. ~ Sarah Miller

My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we've forgotten anything, it's already too late
our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it's bad luck to return for something you've forgotten. ~ Sarah Miller

That debauchery was not a good thing in a married man did not even occur to him [Tsar Nicholas I], and he would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it. But, even though he was convinced that he had acted as he ought, he was left with some sort of unpleasant aftertaste, and, to stifle that feeling, he began thinking about something that always soothed him: about what a great man he was. ~ Leo Tolstoy

This praise of his strategic abilities was especially pleasing to [Tsar] Nicholas, because, though he was proud of his strategic abilities, at the bottom of his heart he was aware that he had none. And now he wanted to to hear more detailed praise of himself. ~ Leo Tolstoy

The tsar [Nicholas II] is not treacherous but he is weak. Weakness is not treachery, but it fulfils all its functions. ~ Wilhelm II

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete ~ Nicholas Sparks

In Russia, the person who put Sevastopol on the literary map was Leo Tolstoy, a veteran of the siege. His fictionalized memoir The Sebastopol Sketches made him a national celebrity. Already with the first installment of the work published, Tsar Alexander II saw the propaganda value of the piece and ordered it translated into French for dissemination abroad. That made the young author very happy. Compared with Tolstoy's later novels, The Sebastopol Sketches hasn't aged well, possibly because this is not a heartfelt book. As the twenty-six-year-old Tolstoy's Sevastopol diaries reveal, not heartache but ambition drove him at the time. Making a name as an author was just an alternative to two other grand plans - founding a new religion and creating a mathematical model for winning in cards (his losses during the siege were massive even for a rich person). ~ Constantine Pleshakov

I've always got songs ready to go. It's not a challenge to conjure anything, it's just whether the music I supply is desirable. ~ Nicholas Thorburn

What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In profile, he could see both the young woman she was becoming and the little girl he remembered. ~ Nicholas Sparks

In much of the world, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is become pregnant. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

The mounting evidence of an erosion of skills, a dulling of perceptions, and a slowing of reactions should give us all pause. As we begin to live our lives inside glass cockpits, we seem fated to discover what pilots already know: a glass cockpit can also be a glass cage. ~ Nicholas Carr

Supposedly I'm impossible to talk to. But it's honestly not me being difficult. Sometimes you just don't have a lot to say. ~ Nicholas Hoult

Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A politically incorrect point must be noted here. Of the countries where women are held back and subjected to systematic abuses such as honor killings and genital cutting, a very large proportion are predominately Muslim. Most Muslims worldwide don't believe in such practices ... but the fact remains that the countries where girls are cut, killer for honor, or kept out of school or the workplace typically have large Muslim populations. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

I grew up with free television. Now, it wasn't free, there was these commercials, and so the economic model was driven through commercials and through advertising. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

I don't think I've ever read an old book through from start to finish. Not after more than six months after writing it, that is. ~ Nicholas Mosley

She´s mine, broken or not," he said darkly. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

After a while, the anger I felt just sort of became part of me, like it was the only way I knew how to handle the grief. I didn't like who I'd become, but I was stuck in this horrible cycle of questions and blame. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Oh my God, my six-year-old has you believing in ghosts now?"
Logan shrugged. "She just...makes some good points."
"Such as?" Dana had honestly not talked about the ghosts that much with Grace. She'd just rolled with the subject, just like she would any other topic. It was something that came up once in a while--like every night at bedtime when the globe need moved--but otherwise Dana didn't dwell on it or make a big deal of it.
"Well, why would someone leave a place they were happy if they didn't have to?" Logan said. "If someone is a spirit and they can hang around someplace, maybe sometimes they choose to do that. ~ Erin Nicholas

If you're a bird... I'm a bird... ~ Nicholas Sparks

The truth is that our way of celebrating the Christmas season does spring from myriad cultures and sources, from St. Nicholas to Coca-Cola advertising campaigns. ~ Richard Roeper

If canines can be conditioned to salivate over nonexistent food, may not men one day be likewise taught to salivate at the prospect of nonexistent facts? ~ Nicholas Meyer

Recall that the fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn't care too much. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

And that historical moment when the young Aphrodite held Poseidon`s magnificent phallus in her small hand & squeezed it was the greatest event of the universe since the Big Bang. It was the moment when Eros, separated from Himeros & Chaos in the Big Bang, were reunited, to become one again. And all who were there saw Aphrodite`s girdle changed its colour from a passion red to orange, & then to gold, the colour of Love. ~ Nicholas Chong

Closely connected things can remain utterly different. ~ Nicholas Thomas

A good man is hard to find," she said wistfully. "Not everyone is as lucky as you are. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I want to be with you as much as possible, Ronnie. You're smart and funny and you're honest. I trust you. I trust us. Yeah, I'm leaving and you're going back home. But neither of those things changes the way I feel about you. And my feelings aren't going to change simply because I'm going to Vanderbilt. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I've told you a million times, I don't exaggerate. ~ Charlie Nicholas

I'm pretty brutal about getting rid of stuff. There wasn't anything where I was like, "Oh, I miss that," because usually it's for a good reason. ~ Nicholas Stoller

The bond between book reader and book writer has always been a tightly symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiriting new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer's work. It gives the author confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. "All great men have written proudly, nor cared to explain," said Emerson. "They knew that the intelligent reader would come at last, and would thank them. ~ Nicholas Carr

If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular side. So you can calculate the risk. But, in the stock market, such computations are bull - you don't even know how many sides the dice have! ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Too far-fetched to believe, too obvious to ignore. ~ Nicholas Sparks

..And if I'm looking for a definition of love then perhaps this is it. That another person can help fill the empty space inside us. Even when they're gone. ~ Nicholas Hogg

Everything a baby does strikes a parent as the most magical thing he/she has ever seen. ~ Nicholas Sparks

I propose that if you want a simple step to a higher form of life, as distant from the animal as you can get, then you may have to denarrate, that is, shut down the television set, minimize time spent reading newspapers, ignore the blogs. Train your reasoning abilities to control your decisions; nudge System 1 (the heuristic or experiential system) out of the important ones. Train yourself to spot the difference between the sensational and the empirical. This insulation from the toxicity of the world will have an additional benefit: it will improve your well-being. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

They tell you that space is emptiness, nothingness - the void. They suggest that space, empty space, is something negative. I found out that it's not! Space lives, Scott. Nothingness, emptiness, has a life all its own. ~ Nicholas Fisk

When we have a narrative in mind, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. ~ Nicholas Kristof

I think everyone has some fascination with what's outside our existence. It's a constant journey to find the truth. ~ Nicholas Lea

I think again about the Tree of Life. A wonderful notion that we as people are all stemmed and thrive from a tree springing life from branches reaching out to help our blood flow and providing oxygen to breathe. ~ Nicholas A. McGirr

Well,Sir," she began,"I am twenty-one years old & still a virgin. I have never experienced sexual intercourse. My hymen is not broken.Old men say that a virgin`s Nectar is good for them. I understand that you want to buy. I want to sell."[MMT] ~ Nicholas Chong

They were inlove, but they hadn't been lovers; they were friends and yet also strangers for so many years ~ Nicholas Sparks

If you look at the heroes of antiquity and myth, they all have flaws. It's something that they have to overcome; their flaws are something that they have to act in spite of. The challenge is not to defy your fate, but to endure it. That is heroic. ~ Nicholas Meyer

Silent evidence pervades everything connected to the notion of history. By history, I don't mean just those learned-but-dull books in the history section (with Renaissance paintings on their cover to attract buyers). History, I will repeat, is any succession of events seen with the effect of posteriority.
This bias extends to the ascription of factors in the success of ideas and religions, to the illusion of skill in many professions, to success in artistic occupations, to the nature versus nurture debate, to mistakes in using evidence in the court of law, to illusions about the "logic" of history
and of course, most severely, in our perception of the nature of extreme events. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Some people try and fail and they get stuck in that reality. They forget that they entered the race while the other 99% of people sat around too scared to even try. ~ Nicholas Muir

And what a lovely body the young girl possessed! She was obviously proud of it herself & never seemed ashamed to display it. Iris Leong then decided that if she had a body like Phyllis`, she, too, would be proud to display it in all its glory.
All the cards now appeared to be stacked in the girl`s favour. She enjoyed orgasms all day long & yet never had to fear about losing her virginity. She thus had her cake & also ate it. She should be a model to all young girls, Iris decided.[MMT] ~ Nicholas Chong

It was easy to idealize someone you barely knew. ~ Nicholas Sparks

An actor can be as talented as another, but if he doesn't stick to what the director's intentions are, it all falls down. I adore working with actors. ~ Nicholas Ray

A living poem had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world - access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms ~ Nicholas Stern