El que hoy es un impetuoso joven se quedaría horrorizado si contemplarael retrato de lo que será en su vejez. Llevaos con vosotros todos losimpulsos humanos cuando salgáis de los fáciles años de la juventudpara...

It is almost impossible to express the extraordinary silence that came over everyone whose eyes were fixed on the painting––not a rustle, not a sound; and the painting meanwhile appeared loftier and loftier with every...

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

Il zapacise pur si simplu multimea aceea nespus de pestrita, de parca diavolul faramase lumea bucati si le adunase apoi la loc, fara niciun sens, fara niciun rost.

I’ve long suspected dogs of being much smarter than people; I was even certain they could speak, but there was only some kind of stubbornness in them. They’re extraordinary politicians: they notice every human step.

Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.

His whole being, his whole life was awakened in one instant, as if youth returned to him, as if the extinguished sparks of talent blazed up again. The blindfold suddenly fell from his eyes. God!...

You can’t imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.

Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.

Here you will meet singular side-whiskers, tucked with extraordinary and amazing art under the necktie, velvety whiskers, satiny whiskers, black as sable or coal, but, alas, belonging only to the foreign office. Providence has denied...

The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.

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...

This was no longer art: it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. They were alive, they were human eyes! It seemed as if they had been cut out of a living man and...

We ought to thank God for that. Yes, the man who tills the land is more worthy of respect than any.

Ah,steeds,steeds,what is steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you...

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...

I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen...

There are passions that it is not for man to choose.

He disregarded everything, he gave everything to art. He tirelessly visited galleries, spent whole hours standing before the works of great masters, grasped and pursued a wondrous brush. He never finished anything without testing himself...

Whatever you may say, the body depends on the soul.

That same moment he ordered the hateful portrait taken out. But that did not calm his inner agitation: all his feelings and all his being were shaken to their depths, and he came to know...

There are occasions when a woman, no matter how weak and impotent in character she may be in comparison with a man, will yet suddenly become not only harder than any man, but even harder...

Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, magnanimity in decisive...

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

Beauty works perfect miracles. All inner shortcomings in a beauty, instead of causing repugnance, become somehow extraordinarily attractive; vice itself breathes comeliness in them; but if it were to disappear, then a woman would have...

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.

He was no stranger to compassion: his heart was open to many good impulses, though his rank often prevented their manifestation.

Itdoes not need much wisdom to utter words of reproof; but much wisdomis needed to find such words as do not embitter a man’s misfortune, butencourage him, restore to him his spirit, put spurs to...

Two turtle doves will show theeWhere my cold ashes lieAnd sadly murmuring tell theeHow in tears I did die

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you’ll be left without bread and without views.

I am who I am and that’s who I am

Everywhere a man will be sure to meet at least once in his life something that is unlike anything he had happened to see before.

April 43rd 2000Today is the day of great triumph. There is a king of Spain. He has been found at last. That king is me. I only discovered this today. Frankly, it all came to...

In this world, people always find a way of doing what they want

Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has...

Turn round, my boy! How ridiculous you look! What sort of a priest’s cassock have you got on? Does everybody at the academy dress like that?

You can do anything and smash anything in the world with a kopeck.

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

This gentleman evidently belonged to the category of those people who wish the Government to interfere in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives.

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

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,...

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!

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

Believe me, my dear fellow, that so long as people refuse to give up everything for the sake of which they attack and devour each other on earth, that so long as they refuse to...

A swishing is often heard in the Carpathians, the sound as of a thousand mill wheels turning in the water. It is the dead men gnawing at the dead man, in the abyss without issue,...

He was already beginning, as always happens at a respectable age, to take a firm stand for Raphael and the old masters––not because he was fully convinced of their lofty merit, but so as to...

You are on the proper road for Manilovka, but ZAmanilovka – well, there is no such place. The house you mean is called Manilovka because Manilovka is its name; but no house at all is...

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry

Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.

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