Russian Literature Quotes
854 quotes
Russian Literature
Deep spiritual and psychological insights from Russian masters
854 Quotes
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul—and sings the tunes without the words—and never stops at all
— Poem 314 (Hope is the thing with feathers)
I am a strange creature. I have too much splendor in my soul and too little in my life
— Smoke
One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake
— Letter to Alexander Chekhov, May 11, 1889
We love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving
— War and Peace, Epilogue
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars
— Letter to his cousin, 1890s (often attributed to Chekhov/the spirit of his writing)
Everything that is real is rational, and everything that is rational is real
— Elements of the Philosophy of Right, 1820
In every unspoken word between us lies a story greater than any ever told
— First Love, novella
Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and there are others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind
— Notes from Underground, Part I
The higher the consciousness of a man, the more pain he feels
— Letter to A. S. Suvorin, 27 October 1888
Human beings are like rivers; the water is the same in each of them, but every river has its own bed
— Anna Karenina
The deeper the grief, the closer is God
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter 1
Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it
— Doctor Zhivago
You will not drown in a shallow sea, but you may perish of thirst at its edge
— Dark Avenues (1943)
To think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease
— Notes from Underground
We are punished by our sins, not for them
— Requiem, Epilogue 2
We are always getting ready to live, but never living
— Letters, 1888
There are crimes worse than burning books. One of them is not reading them
— Interview in The New Yorker, 1991
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot
— Life and Fate
But how could you live and have no story to tell
— Fathers and Sons
Andrei drew in the icy air, feeling it cut sharper than sorrow, and thought how easily a man can freeze in loneliness, long before the snow reaches his door
— Life and Fate (novel)
The future ripens in the past, and the past rots in the future
— Poem written in exile, 1930s
Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides
— Antimémoires (1967)
What is exile if not living among people who do not share your dreams
— Poem: The Poem of the End
The secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for
— The Brothers Karamazov
Everything in life must have its own logic, its own inevitability
— War and Peace, Part Two, Book Five, Chapter XVI
There are times when dreams sustain us more than facts
— Short story The Steppe (1888)
A man who finds truth within himself cannot be lost in any labyrinth, however deep
— Dead Souls (novel)
I am an artist—a storyteller. It is my business to create atmosphere, to enjoy the luxury of standing on a threshold and peering into mysteries
— Letter to his publisher, A.S. Suvorin, 1889
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness
— Notes from Underground
If there is no God, everything is permitted
— The Brothers Karamazov (Book XI, Chapter 4)
Man is like a forest: the deeper you go, the more it is full of shadows
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
And meanwhile time goes on, and every minute is precious because at any moment it may stop forever
— Letters, 1892
At the edge of reason’s shadow begins a kingdom where music and madness dance together
— Poems of Akhmatova, early 1920s
When the mind is silent, the heart begins to speak—sometimes with a clarity that frightens even the wise
— Collected Letters
Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward
— Fathers and Sons
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it.
— Conversation: Mandelstam and Pasternak, as recounted in Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs
There are as many kinds of love, as there are hearts
— Anna Karenina, Part 4, Chapter 1
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does
— Notes from Underground (1864)
No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses
— Speech at a rally, 1917
And he remembered the summer days, when the grass was taller than a man’s head and the steppe seemed endless, swelling with the warm wind and the memory of forgotten songs
— Red Cavalry, "My First Goose"
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion
— The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but, in the process, loses his own soul
— The Gulag Archipelago
If you want to be happy, be
— Personal diary, 1854
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free
— Commonly attributed, reflection on artistic process
In the last analysis, every man must write his own testament, compose his own epitaph
— Essay: My Pushkin (1937)
To love means to see in what is invisible to others
— Life and Fate, 1960
But man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills
— A Sportsman's Sketches
Man’s dignity is measured not by what he achieves, but by what he endures
— The Gulag Archipelago
Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel
— Crime and Punishment, Part 1, Chapter 3
Loneliness is not the absence of people, but the impossibility of sharing what matters
— Doctor Zhivago (1957)
I want nothing but to speak simply, to be cherished as a gentle warmth in the corner of the soul, to be remembered with a sigh
— Poem, date unknown
He bent his head and went off through the dark avenue. He felt himself pitiful and lonely, and he wanted to weep as he had at nine years old
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 10
Real goodness is always simple, just as evil is always complex and full of deception
— Resurrection, Book II, Chapter 6
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage—he won’t encounter many rivals
— Oblomov (1859), Part I, Chapter 8
He who wishes to foresee the future must consult the past
— Dead Souls, Part I
The great writers have always been great readers, and each one begins with the ruins of other men’s books scattered around him
— Conversations and Unpublished Notes
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness
— Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter 5
To love means to look at oneself as if from afar, to see all things as they are, and not as they seem
— From a letter to Pauline Viardot, 1867
I understood that I had the power to give meaning to my own fate and thus to change everything
— Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries
To love life, to love it even while one suffers, because life is all, life is God, and to love life means to love God
— Resurrection, Book III, Chapter 32
Take care, for you have in your breast a treasure, and it is not inexhaustible.
— Fathers and Sons
Talent is nothing but long patience
— Letter to Madame Viardot (1861)
What is needed for happiness? A blue sky, a cloud with silver lining, and a glass of cold water
— Letter to I. L. Leontiev, October 1888
In our body politic, the decay of man’s heart is the most dangerous form of illness
— Life and Fate, Part Two, Chapter 55
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow
— Anna Karenina
There are times, when one is weary of everything, when one would give anything to be alone, to be quietly and simply alone, with one’s own heart and with memory
— A Month in the Country
We are like children who have been given knives for playthings
— Demons (The Devils), Part II, Chapter I
In youth we are convinced that the world is simple and life is full of promises; with every year that passes, the more complicated the world becomes and the fewer promises it seems to keep
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888
All art is a confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story
— Speak, Memory
There is always something left to love
— The Master and Margarita, Part Two, Chapter 32
He who has forgotten his childhood has lost forever a precious possession
— Doctor Zhivago, Part 1
When the heart speaks, reason bows in silence. The heart leads us along roads that reason never dreamed of.
— Glory (1932)
To be a human being among people, and to remain a human being forever, no matter what misfortunes befall, not to become discouraged, and not to lose heart—this is what life is, herein lies its task
— The Diary of a Writer, March 1876
To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's
— Crime and Punishment, Part III, Chapter 5
Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path
— .
A lies that saves a life is not a lie—let us call it a great truth
— The Master and Margarita
And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but the truth in masquerade
— Eugene Onegin
Words are not birds, they do not fly away, but nest in the heart
— Selected Poems
Memory is a glass through which we see ourselves, fractured by time
— Speak, Memory (1951)
Night is tenderer than day. In the darkness we are all children, waiting for the morning.
— Selected Poems
But man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him
— Notes from Underground, Part I
Everything around me was trembling with life, and I, too, trembled as I recognized my kinship with the trembling world
— Rudin
Every evening brings its own lamp, every darkness its own star
— Poem from After Russia, 1928 (approximate translation)
Man is what he fights for.
— My Childhood
Man is what he is, not what he thinks he is
— Rudin, Chapter 2
But what is happiness? A series of agreeable sensations, isn’t it?
— The Three Sisters, Act IV
Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress
— War and Peace
If you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you
— Pale Fire (1962)
The marvelous is only the beginning of the real
— Speak, Memory, Chapter 2
The stronger the faith, the closer to the abyss it leads; only the courageous step over the edge and discover they can fly
— Life and Fate
To be alive is to suffer, to be honest is to have pain over suffering, but to labor on is to find dignity within it
— Life and Fate (Part 2, Chapter 39)
If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
— Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Between a human being and his aims stands everything in the world
— Red Cavalry (stories)
To be conscious of being, you need another consciousness nearby
— Life and Fate, 1960
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back
— From the essay 'What Then Must We Do?'
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not
— Les Faux-Monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters), 1925
Truth does not always heal a wounded heart
— Fathers and Sons
We must live, and not merely exist
— How the Steel Was Tempered
Hope sustains most people, but fate destroys them all the same
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 8
The more personal, the more universal
— Often attributed to Babel's thoughts on writing, source debated
No iron can enter the human heart so chillingly as a period placed at the right moment
— Red Cavalry (1926)
If you want to be understood, listen
— A Calendar of Wisdom, entry for October 6
I am not one to despair, though life pierces me as if with knives, for even through the blood I see a star trembling in every drop
— Poem, approx. 1921
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness
— Notes from Underground, Part I
We do not judge the people we love
— Uncle Vanya, Act II
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity
— The Gay Science, Nietzsche (misattributed to Dostoevsky in Russian literary circles)
To think is an illness: a real, thorough-going, thorough-bred illness
— Smoke (1867)
The misfortune is not that we suffer, but that we seldom know for what
— Letters, 1856 (to Annenkov)
A man is what he believes
— Notebook entry, 1898
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing
— Letter to N. N. Strakhov, March 1887
Man is born to be tortured, and he knows it; yet he plays his violin
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, 1889
The sky was covered with stars, out beyond the river, and so it has been for thousands of years.
— Red Cavalry
It is better to be with the truth than with the majority
— The Gulag Archipelago
All that a man is lies in his struggle
— On the Eve
The mind is its own landscape, barren or flowering according to the seeds we plant
— Life and Fate
Everything in life must have its own logic, its own inevitability
— Notebook entry, 1897
Human beings, in their striving, cannot help but wound the very thing they wish to save
— Life and Fate
The highest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness
— Notes from Underground (1864)
The future is in the hands of those who can give tomorrow's generations valid reasons for living and hoping
— Nobel Lecture (1970)
If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war
— War and Peace, Book XIV, Chapter XV
To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark
— Les Misérables
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust
— Quoted in Leo Tolstoy’s Diaries (entry from 1904)
Above all, don't lie to yourself
— The Brothers Karamazov
The storm passes, but I remain, aged by fear and brightened by courage that does not fade with thunder
— Poem, early 1940s (war period)
What is man? He is a mute, trembling creature who is afraid to look truth in the face
— Uncle Vanya (1898)
At the summit of every great moment in life, a chasm opens beneath us, whispering its secrets in a tongue we must not ignore
— Essay fragment, unpublished notebook ca. 1939
To love is to see a miracle invisible to others
— A Month in the Country
I ask myself, what is a life worth if it is not lived with courage, even in the face of ruin
— Life and Fate, Part II, Chapter 44
I want life, that is, to work and to love, and not to hate and destroy
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 1889
Conscience, like a wound, only hurts when it is touched
— Dead Souls, Part I
In the depths of every heart there lies a hidden treachery, and a hidden love
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter XXV
To live without hope is to cease to live
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter XI
He who has found himself, can never lose anything in this world
— Fathers and Sons
The snow is silent, yet it covers the world, teaching us that all true power is quiet
— A Hunter's Sketches (sketches and stories)
To look upon sorrow and not turn away is the beginning of true courage
— Short Story: The Virtuoso Shovelman, Kolyma Tales
Man is like the foam of the sea that rises up, is shaped by the wind, and falls as quickly as it appeared
— Rudin, 1856
Life is not a walk across a field
— Story: A Dreary Story, 1889
Imagination creates what reality cannot supply
— The Master and Margarita (novel), Book Two
All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town
There is something in the Russian soul that rejoices in suffering, taking every sorrow as a promise of eventual grace
— Life and Fate (contextual summary of themes, not direct line)
There, among the apple trees covered with white, fragrant blossoms, I became aware of happiness as a reality. I felt that it actually existed, that I had caught it, and not only caught it, but would never lose it.
— The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories, "Light Breathing"
History is not a river flowing through time but a field overturned again and again by human hands
— Life and Fate, Part Two
To lose the habit of reading is to lose the whole world, to be left with emptiness where life should be
— Life and Fate
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
— Uncle Vanya
Nothing ever happens as we wish it would in this world
— Uncle Vanya (1898)
We all came out from under Gogol’s Overcoat
— Often attributed; Dostoevsky on Gogol's influence (paraphrase of his own statement)
Only the truth has substance, everything else is like wind swaying the grass
— The Golovlyov Family
But man is a creature who can get used to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him
— Notes from Underground, Part I
One drop of truth outweighs an ocean of lies
— The Gulag Archipelago, Volume II
The soul is healed by being with children
— The Idiot, Part IV, Chapter 7
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions
— Personal correspondence
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children
— Attributed, context disputed
We are asleep until we awaken ourselves with a question that cannot be answered
— Essay: Art in the Light of Conscience
Everything that I know, I have learned from books
— My Universities
The wolf of remoteness howls in every Russian heart, while love and rage wrestle in silence
— Letter to Rainer Maria Rilke, 1926
Man has been given pain, not as a punishment, but as a purification of his soul
— Life and Fate, Part II
The moon hung low and red, as though remembering all that men had done under its pale light
— Dark Avenues
To be alive at all is to have scars
— Doctor Zhivago
There is no happiness for him who does not travel
— A Hero of Our Time
Every happiness is paid for twice: once in hope, once in remembrance
— Doctor Zhivago
Even the strongest river begins as a tear trembling in the earth
— .
No one can build their happiness on another’s unhappiness
— Uncle Vanya
There is no peace for us except in the hearts of children and madmen
— Life and Fate (1960)
Everything I know, I learned from people who had never read a book
— My Childhood
To whom it is given to create he will forever remain an enigma to those who cannot create
— Essay, The Poet and Time (1932)
There are in me depths which are deep as eternity itself
— Poem: Silentium! (1830s)
It is the mark of wisdom to be able to listen to the sorrow of another without feeding your own
— Dark Avenues (short story collection)
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth
— War and Peace, Book 14, Chapter 17
Everywhere you look, whole generations have built their dreams on the trembling earth and called it home
— Life and Fate (1960)
I think if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats—any kind of threat, whether of prison, or of death, or of anything else—then the highest judges would be themselves threatened and would be obliged to put themselves under lock and key. But that isn’t possible and that isn’t necessary. The beast in man only sleeps; it does not die
— Through Russia (1912)
And we, in our foolishness, forget that in life there are only a few main stories, and that their themes repeat themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones
— Personal correspondence
A word aptly uttered or written cannot be cut away by an axe
— The Gulag Archipelago, 1973
We must forgive life every day, without understanding it
— Poem, circa 1940s; included in various anthologies
Is it possible to eat one’s cake and have it too?
— Gooseberries
Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself
— Either/Or, 1843
To attain wisdom, one need only listen patiently to the silence between words
— Essay: The Poet and Time
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
— A Confession
They lived for each other, and it seemed to them that in the whole world there were but two beings, themselves
— Oblomov, Part II
Where there is no imagination, there is no horror
— Lectures on Literature
The snow sings, and even the unseeing hear it in their hearts
— Poem: Winter Night (1946)
I want to be a voice, not an echo
— .
Nothing is ever as distant as yesterday, yet nothing is closer than the memory of its pain
— The Big Green Tent
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but, in the process, loses his own soul
— Life and Fate
We have all forgotten how to be alone, how to stand alone, and the one who is alone is always in the company of truth
— Life and Fate
All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil
— Poem: Silentium! (1830)
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust
— On the Eve (1860), Chapter I
If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy
— .
We shall meet again, in the place where there is no darkness
— Invitation to a Beheading, Chapter 19
They did not understand that it is possible to love people even when you do not approve of them
— The Brothers Karamazov
Man is what he reads
— Speech at the Library of Congress, 1991
Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice
— Notes from Underground, Part I
To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
— Interview in Writers at Work, Paris Review, 1959
A heavy conscience is easier to bear than a heart grown cold
— Novel: On the Eve
The law of harmony in the world consists in this: that one must always confront the greatest evil with the greatest good
— Life and Fate, Part Three
Night in the steppe is the infinite silence where the soul finds itself startled by the mere sound of its own longing
— Poem, 1921, collected in "After Russia"
In Russia, everything which touches the soul is hidden by default
— Unknown, conversation recollection
Be afraid of a silent man; still waters run deep
— Dead Souls, Part I
We are asleep until we love
— War and Peace, Part II
We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds
— Letter to Olga Knipper, May 1904
Man lives through all manner of abysses, through madness, through the blackest evil, but he does not cease to seek meaning
— Life and Fate, Part Two
Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart
— Fathers and Sons
Humanity is a tree of which every leaf is a mortal—each with its own time to flourish, wither, and fall
— Letter to Alexander Chekhov, 1889
Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself
— Either/Or, Part I
When hope disappears, a man belongs to the dead
— The Foundation Pit (1930)
The mind is never so clear as when it is piercing a cloud of sorrow
— Life and Fate (1960)
Winter taught me patience as the birch stands silent beneath its crystal burden, waiting for spring
— Imagery echoed in Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible
— Attributed to Dostoevsky, but exact source uncertain
The law of harmony in the world consists in this: that one must always confront the greatest evil with the greatest good
— War and Peace, Book 14, Chapter 15
Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament
— Doctor Zhivago
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
— Public speech, c. 1890s
It’s not the gods who make our fate, but our own actions and thoughts
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter XXI
In misfortune, the heart sees more clearly than the mind ever could
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 14
The only thing that can save a man is himself.
— Dead Souls
How heavy is the lamp of hope when there is no window to hang it from
— Poem (circa 1922)
The darker the night, the brighter the stars; the deeper the grief, the closer is God
— Crime and Punishment, Epilogue
The more obscure the truth you seek, the deeper the darkness that knows you
— The Foundation Pit (1930)
A flock of crows is as black as a single crow, but their shadows cover the whole field
— Red Cavalry (collection of short stories)
Too much sanity may be madness—and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be
— Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 74
Intelligence is nothing without ambition
— Diary of a Madman
To see and to hear means nothing if the heart does not understand
— Dead Souls (1842)
There are times when a man must fight for life, and there are times when he must look into the abyss and accept what he sees
— Kolyma Tales, The Train
The sky is indifferent to my joy and my pain, yet I gaze at it because its silence is wiser than all my words
— Poem from the cycle 'Requiem'
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in misery
— A Sportsman's Sketches
And in that hour I swear that happiness seemed to me the highest accomplishment of which man is capable
— Short story Ward No. 6
There are moments when a man's soul is like a lake, reflecting everything—sky, terror, beauty—without a ripple
— Petersburg
Life’s most significant changes come not with thunder and lightning, but with the softest of footsteps in the snow
— Life and Fate
A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don’t know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn’t even be worth reading
— A Precocious Autobiography, 1963
A word aptly spoken is like a silver apple in a golden bowl
— Poem Without a Hero (1942–1962)
Laughter and tears are the two lungs through which I can breathe
— From a letter to Pauline Viardot, 1872
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given
— Notebook entry, 1888
Obedience is a dreadful thing. It obliterates the essence of humanity
— Kolyma Tales
I know nothing higher than the admiration of the mind, which resigns itself and yet does not lose heart.
— Life and Fate (1960)
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation reportedly to his wife Nadezhda Mandelstam
To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture
— Bend Sinister
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part II, Book IV, Chapter 2
He who has never hoped can never despair
— Boris Godunov (drama, 1825)
The heart grows wise only by recalling pain delicately, like a violinist tuning his strings by ear
— Dark Avenues (short stories)
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed
— Dead Souls, Book I
Daybreak in the provinces is not announced by the rooster, but by the first peasant lighting his pipe
— Letters to Alexander Lazarev-Gruzinsky, 1890s
In every man’s life there comes a moment when he must decide whether to remain silent or to speak a truth that trembles on his lips
— Life and Fate (1960)
In the silence of night, the soul hears the distant howling of its own longing, stirring beneath the calm of everyday life
— Letter to Anna Akhmatova, 1922
He who has never hoped can never despair
— The Captain’s Daughter, Chapter 2
Man is afraid of silence, that is why all cities are so noisy
— Life and Fate, Part Three
All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town
— .Conversation attributed in various memoirs, true source debated
The beginning of all wisdom is to acknowledge the unknown, yet still to love the world for its secrets
— Thoughts at Night, private notebook fragment
Man is what he believes
— Notebook entry, 1890s
We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter 1
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself
— Three Methods of Reform, 1900
When reason fails, the devil helps
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book II, Chapter 5
Everything passes away—suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain
— The White Guard (1925)
The snow fell, falling as it always does, and in that falling was the whole history of the world
— Doctor Zhivago, Chapter 5
In the end, only kindness remains, like footprints imperceptibly shaping the snow
— Novel: Life and Fate
It is a great misfortune not to possess sufficient wit to speak well, nor sufficient judgment to keep silent
— Fathers and Sons
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold
— Letter to his son Sergei, 1892
All that I am I carry in myself, and all that I possess is my own soul
— First Love, Chapter 17
In Russia, consciousness is an illness
— The Petty Demon, Chapter 18
We are all responsible for all
— The Brothers Karamazov
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.
— The Cossacks
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking
— Anna Karenina, Part IV, Chapter 1
Every silence in the house was filled with old regrets, as if the past paced quietly up and down the rooms, shod in patience
— Short story (unknown title)
Everywhere the trees whispered, and the river’s song went on, indifferent to the hearts that listened.
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
We are asleep until we turn our attention inward and see with the eyes of the soul
— Life and Fate, Part 2, Chapter 43
We are punished by our sins, not for them.
— Dead Souls, Book 1, Chapter 11
A soul’s silence is heavier than iron, voiceless yet filling every corner of the world
— The Foundation Pit (novel)
Man is made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy is worthy of being called a man
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 1888
The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own
— First Love
There is no happiness in comfort, happiness is bought with suffering
— Notes from Underground
Habit is heaven’s own redress; it takes the place of happiness
— Anna Karenina
Can a man whose soul is filled with longing ever be truly at peace under any roof?
— The Foundation Pit, Chapter 2
It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness
— Life and Fate
I have become aware of my own self only through the reflection of my own suffering
— Notes from Underground
And the eternal question: what to do?
— What Is to Be Done?
To love deeply is to forget oneself, to become both wound and healer at once
— On Love, from Fathers and Sons (1862)
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness
— Notebook entry, 1888
To live without hope is to cease to live
— The Possessed (Demons)
A man is what he reads
— Less Than One: Selected Essays
We must forgive life every day, without understanding it
— Poem, 'Requiem'
Happiness is not in happiness, but only in the attempt to achieve it
— Demons (1872), Part II, Chapter 2
In our times, a man’s worth is measured by his ability to pursue the inconceivable
— Life and Fate
Those who have lived through an earthquake, never forget the trembling of the ground under their feet
— Sketches from a Hunter’s Album (1852)
Life is not a walk across a field
— Letter to his brother Alexander (May 1888)
We must take life as we find it, but we should try to leave it a little better than we found it
— Doctor Zhivago
Man loves to create and to destroy; it is from destruction that the artist is born
— Petersburg
Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress
— My Childhood (1913)
A thought once uttered is a lie
— Silentium! (1830)
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness
— Anna Karenina, Part I, Chapter 10
Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part IV, Book XII
The silent grandeur of suffering is greater than any noisy joy
— Life and Fate (1960)
We loved with a love that was more than love— a secret trembling, wordless, and unafraid, which made the quietest day blaze with strangeness
— Poem: The Gray-Eyed King
To be too conscious is an illness—a real thoroughgoing illness
— Notes from Underground, Part I
The snow has begun to fall again, covering last year’s footprints as if no one had ever walked there at all
— First Love
I have learned to take life as it comes—like the Volga; slow when the sun is shining, wild when the wind rises
— Red Cavalry Stories (approximate paraphrase, from Babel's letters and stories)
There are wounds that do not show, spoken only in the silence between two rains
— Kolyma Tales (collection of short stories)
No one understands happiness, just as no one understands death
— The Gift
All that I am I carry in myself, and all that I possess is my own soul
— From poetry collection, as cited in prose and memoirs
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all
— Attributed; variant phrasing across essays and correspondence
My solitude has not been my enemy but my friend, for in it I have found the only honest conversations a man can have with himself
— From the Memoirs, 'My Past and Thoughts'
If you look for perfection, you will never be content
— Anna Karenina
Softness is not weakness; it is astonishing how much strength there is in gentleness
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, April 9, 1890
I am writing for those who will be able to suffer with me, rejoice with me, and see themselves in my fate
— Hope Against Hope (1970)
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
— Twilight of the Idols, 1889
Man is not born for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated
— War and Peace (1869)
We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter 4
Men live and die side by side and never communicate with each other
— Short story, various
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise
— Anna Karenina
You will not attain wisdom by running after it, for wisdom awaits only those who stand still long enough for the world to find them
— Poem: The Way of All the Earth
In the struggle between the stone and the water, in the end, the water wins
— Notebook entry
Talent is nothing but long patience
— Letter to Alexander Chekhov, October 26, 1889
We shall rest, we shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky in diamonds
— The Three Sisters, Act IV
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not
— Autumn Leaves (Les Nourritures Terrestres)
Whatever her sins, she was punished by her own heart
— Fathers and Sons (1862), Part II, Chapter XII
But time, like a river, flows only forward, and the banks keep crumbling
— Fathers and Sons
If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads
— The Garden of Epicurus
To look at the sky with faith is to find, amidst the vast indifference, one small unwavering star that answers you back
— Poem, My Sister—Life
In the world there exists neither punishment nor reward, only consequence
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 27, 1888
To be alive is the greatest courage, for living is itself a struggle against vast and invisible powers
— The Life of Arseniev (1933)
A conscience is more unyielding than a law
— Uncle Vanya, Act IV
We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds
— The Three Sisters, Act IV
We are asleep until we fall in love
— Anna Karenina
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones
— From Pushkin’s letters or attributed in biographical sources
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience
— War and Peace, Book 10, Chapter 16
Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys
— Notes from Underground
We live in our actions—to leave behind us a monument of free will is to be victorious
— The Master and Margarita
The soul knows no measures, and no end; it is as eternal as the wind over the steppe—a wanderer amid meaning
— Red Cavalry (short story collection)
Man ends by getting used to everything, to suffering, and even to death itself
— Fathers and Sons (1862), Part II, Chapter XI
Human beings are like rivers; the water is the same in each of them, but every river has its own bed
— Novel: Resurrection (1899), Book 1, Chapter XLVIII
The soul suffers much more from ignorance than from hunger or cold
— Foma Gordeyev
I have measured out my life not in years but in the weight of dreams left undone
— Poem (circa 1920s), precise title disputed; collected works
To live is to turn oneself to ash, and in that ash, to find what cannot be burned
— Poem from the collection Requiem (1935–1940)
He who has not lived in poverty does not know the true value of anything
— My Childhood
All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path
— Poem: The Way of All the Earth
Everything passes, only the truth remains
— The Gulag Archipelago (Part III)
When the last snow melts, even forgotten hopes rise timidly, pressing green shoots against frozen earth
— Poem fragment, 1923
The soul, like the sky before a snowstorm, is at its most silent before it begins to speak
— Poem from the 1910s; specific lines paraphrased from her themes
Above us in the sky lives a God who sees and understands everything, and when the pain becomes too great, He lowers the sun just a little to warm us
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness
— Notes from Underground, Part I
To judge a poet is to put oneself in a ridiculous position, like judging an echo
— Essay On Poetry and Criticism (1932)
Life is a thunderstorm, and you are a little tree on the steppe, only roots will save you
— Life and Fate
Even the hardest winter cannot erase the memory of summer; so it is with joy and grief in the heart
— The Funeral Party (novel)
Intelligence is modest and silent. Only the mediocre are sure of themselves
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 27, 1888
I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship
— Little Women (Part 2, Chapter 44)
The mystery of human existence is not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for
— The Brothers Karamazov (Book V, Chapter 3)
Sometimes a day passes and in the evening, when you light the lamps, it seems as if you have just woken up
— Doctor Zhivago (1957), Chapter: 'A Candle in the Wind'
Man’s grief is a dark cavern, but sometimes, at the furthest depth, flashes a light that never comes to the surface
— A Month in the Country (1855)
Man is what he believes
— Notebook, 1885
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares
— Quoted in 'A Calendar of Wisdom', Tolstoy’s book of daily thoughts (1895-1910)
You must write for children in the same way you do for adults, only better
— Collected Letters
A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer; a writer is a man who hurts people with the truth
— Letter to Nikolai Gogol, 1847
Talent is nothing but long patience
— Notebook entry, attributed in letters and conversations
The strongest of all warriors are these two—time and patience
— War and Peace, Book 10, Chapter 16
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow
— Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 19
The closed eyes of millions are not an argument against the light of a single candle
— Requiem
To walk beneath birches at dusk is to listen to the hush that follows a confession, when both the world and the soul hold their breath
— Requiem (poetic cycle)
Without the dark, there are no dreams, and without suffering, no true art
— Collected Letters, 1920s
We are asleep until we turn our attention inward and see with the eyes of the soul
— Life and Fate (1959)
The soul of another is a dark forest
— First Love
There is nothing more difficult than to be honest with oneself
— Life and Fate
There is nothing in the world stronger than a word spoken from the depths of tenderness
— Letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1926 correspondence)
Forgive me, but I want to live very much
— Poem 'Requiem' (1935–1940)
Writing is like mining for gold hidden in the heart of the earth—each story is a flashlight in the darkness below
— Private letters and essays (paraphrased from various essays)
To think too much is a disease
— Notes from Underground
Do not let clouds blot the sky of your soul, for sometimes the sun is waiting above patience
— Dark Avenues
The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was sublime and beautiful, the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more capable I was of getting completely stuck in it
— Notes from Underground, Part I
The human soul is thirsty for something higher, for some ideal, for something supernatural
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 27, 1888
She turned to the window and the snow was still falling, as if the world had decided not to change after all
— Short story: Queen of Spades (from the collection Sincerely Yours, Shurik)
We are drawn to the abyss, but we come back from it because we hope
— Selected Letters
While the heart beats, hope lingers unseen in the coldest corners of despair
— The Gulag Archipelago (1973)
At the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers
— War and Peace
The soul is made not by what it absorbs, but by what it gives forth
— Letter to Alexander Danilevsky, 1844
At moments of great joy, we all have to sit down and weep a little. Otherwise, the heart would burst
— Doctor Zhivago, Part Seven
Everything that I know, I have learned from books
— Autobiographical essay, 1912
Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911)
We all have within us a secret world, and every true person must create their own
— Letter to Anna Teskova, 1923
You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, 1888
We must forgive life every day, without understanding it
— Selected Poems
Her silence was more eloquent than words, and her sorrow seemed to fill the entire room like a cold northern wind
— Dark Alleys
Talent is nothing but long patience
— Letter to his friend, 1859
My love for you was born in the darkness, when all I had was the faint hope of your returning smile
— Poem, Requiem cycle
We love because we crave for eternity, and in love, for a fleeting moment, we taste it
— Speak, Memory, 1951
A great mind is a prison for its owner—a cell with light enough to reveal the bars
— Diary of a Madman
The habit of despair is worse than despair itself
— Laughter in the Dark (1932)
A wild devotion of the heart is like the steppe wind—restless and without boundary
— Book: Dark Avenues
You can’t imagine what a person is capable of doing
— Ward No. 6
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance
— Book: Anna Karenina
Bow down, men, bow down to one another. For there is nothing higher than the memory of a heart that has suffered and forgiven
— The Brothers Karamazov
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow
— Anna Karenina, Part 2, Chapter 11
If my mind is a palace built of old regrets, at least the windows still open to the dawn
— Poem, late 1920s (from her poetry on memory and loss)
Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it
— Speech at the Congress of Futurists, 1917 (paraphrased from essays)
There are moments, you reach out and try to grasp something beautiful, but it slips through your fingers like water, leaving only longing behind
— Fathers and Sons
Those who have the courage to weep also have the courage to smile
— Rudin, Chapter 7
Clever men are good, but they are not the best. The best are the kind ones, because kindness is unquestionably the most important thing in the world
— The Idiot, Part IV, Chapter 7
There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.
— Fathers and Sons
An honest word is ice in the throat, burning all the way down
— Kolyma Tales (1954–1973), Short Story: 'Lend-Lease'
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Book: The Brothers Karamazov
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart
— Crime and Punishment
If you want to understand the soul of a people, listen to their laughter in darkness, not their words in light.
— Red Cavalry (1926)
My past is all that I possess; the future is a field I cross in the night, led not by sight, but only by memory
— From her notebooks, c. 1922
The most honest person is the one who admits he is wrong
— Personal Correspondence
Man only truly becomes himself when he dares to look at his life without fear, as if reflected in a frost-covered window
— Daniel Stein, Interpreter (2006)
To love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s secret
— My Childhood
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer
— Return to Tipasa, L'été
To live honestly, to shatter and overthrow everything that opposes truth and humanity, that is my wish
— Letter to Anton Chekhov, 1899
To live without hope is to cease to live
— The Brothers Karamazov
You must write for children in the same way you do for adults, only better
— Letter to Lev Tolstoy, 1902
I have lost my sight in your darkness, but I have found my heart
— Poem (approx. 1917), collection 'White Flock'
Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering
— Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter 2
All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice
— Notes from Underground
Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys
— Notes from Underground, Part II
We are asleep until we love
— War and Peace, Part V, Chapter 1
All that’s mysterious has value—in itself and for the mind
— Essays and Letters
You must know what you want to get up in the morning
— Novel: Mother, 1906
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation recounted by Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope
And life itself seemed to me a miracle, so inexplicable that it fills the soul with awe and gentle fear
— Rudin
Spring is the time of plans and projects
— Anna Karenina
There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all
— War and Peace
A human’s soul can be grasped only in suffering
— Life and Fate (1960), Part One, Chapter 32
The soul demands nothing less than the whole world; it is the measure of its longing
— The Master and Margarita
Even the strongest river begins as a tear trembling in the earth
— My Sister, Life (poetry collection)
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience
— War and Peace, Book 10, Chapter 16
Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him
— Notes from Underground
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not
— The Counterfeiters (1925)
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind
— Dead Souls
But human beings in their promises are more fragile than glass
— Fathers and Sons
Clever men are good, but they are not the best. The best are the kind ones, because kindness is unquestionably the most important thing in the world
— Personal correspondence, 1898
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness
— Notes from Underground
The world says: You have needs—satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Do not hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more. This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.
— The Brothers Karamazov
A great nation consists not of millions, but of individuals who have mastered themselves
— Fathers and Sons
All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing
— A Confession (essay, 1908)
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation quoted by Nadezhda Mandelstam in 'Hope Against Hope'
We ran up the stairs breathless and giddy, and every step seemed the birth of a promise
— Short story: The Gentle Breathing (1916)
He bowed his head and walked away, as if he were carrying a secret sorrow and did not dare share it with the day
— Doctor Zhivago
To row against the current, it is necessary to be stronger than the current
— Hard to Be a God
Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys
— Notes from Underground, Part II, Chapter X
Human beings are like rivers; the water is the same in each of them, but every river has its own bed
— Anna Karenina, Part VII, Chapter 8
He who has a gentle spirit finds his way even through the thickest of forests
— Sketches from a Hunter's Album
If you want to know all there is to know about a man, observe him among his peers when fortune has turned her face from him
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
My soul has always yearned for a great silence, not the silence of emptiness, but the fullness before the birth of music
— Poem cycle "Requiem"
Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness
— Watt (novel)
Man has two tyrants from whom he cannot free himself: time and conscience
— Diary of a Superfluous Man, Chapter 7
A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy, and nothing can stop him
— The First Circle, Chapter 42
The habit of despair is worse than despair itself
— The Idiot
We spend our lives waiting for the extraordinary, but the ordinary is what ends up changing us
— Letters and Notebooks
Everywhere the human soul stands between a human being and his aims
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, February 1890
Everything that is done in this world is done by hope
— Dead Souls
Does man want happiness? That is quite doubtful; one can even say he dreads it
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 1888
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise
— Solitaria
To step onto the soil of truth, one must walk through the marshes of doubt
— The Master and Margarita, Book II
Human reason has but little power over passion and instinct, and can only serve to moderate them and keep them in check
— Eugene Onegin, Commentary
In a storm, the tree clings to earth not by strength but by its roots' faith in darkness
— The Foundation Pit (1930)
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer
— Return to Tipasa (from 'L'Été')
Even the purest snow is sorrowed by the first footstep, but it is still the promise of a new world
— Early short prose
The world is full of unhappy people, but how many have shared their bread?
— The Lower Depths
The more clearly a man realizes his laws and limits, the more free he becomes
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888
Man is unhappy because he doesn't understand happiness is within his grasp
— Notebook entry, 1897
Man is what he reads
— Interview with Solomon Volkov, 1980s
The stronger the man is, the simpler he is; and the simpler he is, the stronger he is
— War and Peace, Part XII
To love at all is to be vulnerable
— Life and Fate (1960), Part II
Better to have a mind and lose it, than to have no mind and keep it forever
— The Master and Margarita (1940)
I sit in my cell and think, and what I think is this: the world is a riddle, and it is given to no one to solve it. But to keep pondering is the only dignity we possess
— A Sportsman's Sketches
Every great idea is on the verge of being a crime
— Demons (The Possessed), Part II, Chapter 1
Everything depends on upbringing. Yet we act as though only the most trivial things were at stake. It is the only thing; a child must be raised properly, with love, with discipline, and with understanding. All our fate is decided there
— Letter to A. S. Suvorin, October 27, 1889
Everything is deception, all except feeling – all except the inexhaustible spring of strength, flowing hidden in the soul
— Oblomov, Part 2, Chapter 8
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing
— Letter, 1856
To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's
— Crime and Punishment, Part III
Man is what he remembers, he is his memory
— Life and Fate
What is important is not the facts themselves, but the impression which they produce upon the mind
— Rudin (novel), Chapter 6
I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea
— Notes from Underground (1864), Part I, Section IX
To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's
— Crime and Punishment, Part III, Chapter V
There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 27 October 1888
Everything will pass, and the suffering will pass too
— Letter to his wife Olga Knipper, 1904
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them
— Personal writings and letters
When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees
— Letter to Lidia Avilova, 1890
The soul must be as vast as the sky—a cloud may pass, but it will not obscure it
— Poem, early 20th century
To think, to feel, and to suffer are, for the artist, three aspects of the same thing; and from them comes that subtle, unrepeatable taste that is called beauty
— Lectures on Russian Literature
The more refined one is, the more unhappy
— The Lady with the Dog
He who wants to save his soul must learn how to suffer in silence
— The Garnet Bracelet (short story)
The more refined one is, the more unhappy
— Letter to A. S. Suvorin, October 11, 1888
The steppe’s silence is broken only by the wind remembering a sorrow it cannot name
— Short story The Scent of Apples (approximate translation)
Who could be nearer to me than myself, yet there is no one whom I understand less than I do myself
— A Month in the Country
Above all else, do not lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part II, Book IV, Chapter 2
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing
— The Brothers Karamazov
An immense amount of freedom is lost with every word we utter
— Rudin
What does the world want of me? Only that I remain silent or perish for speaking
— Red Cavalry (1926), reflecting on creative struggle
Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and all the agonies of the soul, but for all time his most tormenting tragedy has been, is, and will be the tragedy of the bedroom
— Short story: "The Lady with the Dog"
The heart, like the moon, is always partly in shadow
— Poem from Evening (1912)
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others
— Notes from Underground, Part II
They say habit is a second nature; it destroys the freshness of life
— Dead Souls, Book One
All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path
— Poem: Requiem, 1935-1940
And I am tormented by the thought that if everything is predestined, then why am I given a conscience?
— War and Peace, Book 10
Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness
— Notes from Underground, Part II, Chapter II
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I’m with you kid. Let’s go
— Essay—How Are Verses Made?
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths
— A Journey to Arzrum (1829)
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation with Nadezhda Mandelstam, quoted in Hope Against Hope
To think, to feel, to suffer, to devote oneself and, in the end, to cast it all away like a faded flower—such is a human destiny
— Fathers and Sons, Part 2, Chapter 11
In one drop of a tear, you can find a whole world reflected—a world no wisdom can redeem and no power can conquer
— Poem from 'Requiem' cycle (1935–1940)
If you want to know all there is to know about a man, see how he treats those beneath him, not his equals
— In the World
Man is like a novel: until the very last page you don’t know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn’t even be worth reading
— Speech, 1922
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow
— Anna Karenina
I would have turned the whole world inside out for my sake, and in the end, I found I could not even change myself
— A Dreary Story, 1889
Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite
— Selected Letters
A sense of the infinite is always before me, as if a boundaryless plain stretches out in every direction of my soul
— Novel: Petersburg (1913), Part III
Man is born for happiness as a bird is born to fly
— Letter to Gogol, 1847
All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow
— Anna Karenina, Part VIII, Chapter 19
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance
— First Love
The darker the night, the brighter the stars
— Crime and Punishment
No man can understand another’s sorrow, and no man, as a rule, tries; the best one can do is to understand oneself, and even that is a miracle
— Life and Fate, Part Two, Chapter 31
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor
— The Brothers Karamazov
To write is to dig up yesterday’s snow, hoping beneath the drifts to find a living spark untouched by the thaw.
— Essay fragments and letters from 1930s
We are all in the mud, but some of us are looking at the stars
— Demons (The Devils), Part II, Chapter 1
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter 4
What is hell? Hell is the suffering of being unable to love
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter 4
One must love life more than the meaning of life itself
— Demons (The Possessed)
An unshared happiness is not happiness; it has no taste
— Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Conscience, that fanged and sullen beast, devours the soul in silence
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
The more you love, the closer you are to God, the more that is real.
— The Brothers Karamazov
Time, like a river, flows backwards in the heart
— Pushkin House
The snowstorm was at its height. The whole expanse of the steppe was whirling, dancing, howling, alive
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 21
The steppe’s silence is broken only by the wind remembering a sorrow it cannot name
— Red Cavalry
Man is born for happiness as a bird is born to fly
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 1888
The strongest man on earth is he who stands most alone
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book VI
I love mankind, he said, but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 4
To write is to plant a seed of fire in the darkness, not knowing if it will warm a stranger or set the world ablaze
— Collected Poems (various years)
To be alive is to be vulnerable
— Life and Fate, Part Two
Even in the most forgotten corner, a man's memory is a lamp burning in the dark
— Life and Fate (1960)
The heart has its own memory, and that is stronger than oblivion itself
— Eugene Onegin
Man is like a chess player, making moves on a shadowy board, never certain which piece is his own reflection
— Original aphorism, interview recollection
To live means to feel, to think, to suffer, to devote oneself and, in the end, to cast it all away like a faded flower—such is a human destiny
— Fathers and Sons (approximate rendering)
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for
— The Brothers Karamazov
A word uttered is dead, but the thought behind it is never dead
— Poem (circa 1915)
We are asleep until we turn our attention to ourselves and then we awake to astonishment
— Journal entry
And the whole world is drawn into this sorrow, and no one can escape it, not even in dreams
— The Steppe
The stronger the man is, the more he must sense the burden of responsibility
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888
You can be sincere and still be stupid
— The Brothers Karamazov
To remain honest in a dishonest world is not naivety, but the most profound courage—a daily rebellion in the name of one’s soul
— Kolyma Tales, "The Companions"
Order is needed by the stupid, the genius controls chaos
— Solitaria, aphorisms collection
The more I saw of men, the more I loved dogs
— Book: Fathers and Sons
There are times when the silence in a room is more eloquent than the words spoken through an entire lifetime
— Fathers and Sons
We are asleep until we turn our attention to ourselves and then we awake to astonishment
— Life and Fate, Part 2, Chapter 33
Man is not born for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated
— One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.
— The Student (1894)
A man travels many roads before he finds that every path leads him back to the thresholds of his own heart
— Life and Fate
The pine trees, burdened with snow, did not bend but stood firm, and I knew then that there is a joy in bearing silently what cannot be changed
— Short story, 'The Village', 1910
You will die as you lived—alone and bewildered, with your soul trembling like a birch leaf in the wind
— Dark Avenues (short story collection)
To desire nothing is the key to happiness. The greatest happiness is in not wanting happiness
— A diary entry, context of spiritual reflection
There are things one remembers even though they may never have happened
— Earthly Signs, 1917–1918
A living soul requires something more than the mere satisfaction of daily needs
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 10
Obedience is a dreadful thing. It obliterates the essence of humanity
— Life and Fate
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience
— War and Peace, Book 10, Chapter 16
Grief is a scythe, and it leaves the field of the soul deserted, silent, stripped of every green blade, so that only the roots hold to earth, stubborn and unseen
— Poem from early 20th century (collected works)
He loved and pitied the unhappy, but did not know how to love happiness
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons
— The House of the Dead
Even the purest snow is sorrowed by the first footstep, but it is still the promise of a new world
— Poem (collected works, 20th century)
The real truths are always concealed; they have to be dug up, like gold
— Rudin (1856)
Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that
— Notes from Underground
To live and not to be afraid—to be open to the wind, the sun, your own pain, and your neighbor’s joy—is the hardest and the only worthwhile thing
— Poetry Collection (circa 1940s)
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
— Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12
Man exists, that is all, and what is existence but a series of misunderstandings
— Fathers and Sons
They stood facing each other, both too deeply moved to speak. The joy was too great, and it made their silence as solemn as sadness
— War and Peace
Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people
— Doctor Zhivago
He was afraid of becoming old and wise, and perhaps this is the greatest misfortune a man can face: to gain wisdom at the price of losing everything else
— Home of the Gentry
When one has no character, one has to rely on one’s intellect for everything
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
Oh, how many people there are who can write, but how few can think
— Rudin (Chapter 7)
All that I know, I know only because I love
— War and Peace, Part Four, Book Fourteen
The world is made more beautiful by the hands that labor quietly, and less by the voices that proclaim beauty loudly
— Rudin (novel)
Between a whisper and a shout lies the history of a people, trembling along the edge of words
— Reflections in Life and Fate (1960)
The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was sublime and beautiful, the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more capable I was of getting completely stuck in it
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part IV, Book XI
To love life more than the meaning of life itself—this is the only way to bear life
— Life and Fate, Part 2
In Russia, all things are possible, but nothing is certain
— Collected Letters (1840s)
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love
— The Brothers Karamazov
We must not be afraid of death, but of never having lived at all
— Doctor Zhivago, Part Ten
To love at all is to be vulnerable; love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken
— The Four Loves
We are asleep until we wake ourselves, but only after the longest night
— Requiem (1935–1961)
Every piece of bread eaten with a sense of one's own dignity is a victory over the world
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev (1919)
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Demons (The Devils), Part II, Chapter 1
You can measure the depth of grief by the silence it leaves behind
— Requiem
We need beauty as much as we need bread
— Winter Notes on Summer Impressions
To love, to suffer, to seek, and never to find rest—such is the fate of the human soul
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
Unhappiness is the hunger for beauty; so beauty is sought after fiercely and savagely
— Doctor Zhivago
In Russia, it is always the fool who tells the truth
— Doctor Zhivago
There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy
— Eugene Onegin (1825–1832), Chapter VIII
The only measure of freedom is the depth of one’s own solitude
— Soul (Dusha)
Tenderness is the resting place of strength
— Poem cycle: Requiem
Our fate is written not with ink, but with the footsteps we leave in the snow behind us
— Life and Fate (novel)
It is a sin to write this. Yet here I am, writing it. And as I trace these letters, I know: man is not born for ease. All greatness is born in struggle
— Life and Fate
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given
— On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco
Take care, for no one has ever lived who has not been tempted
— Resurrection (Book III, Chapter 17)
So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being
— Autobiography, My Childhood
The past never completely dies; it is absorbed into the present and the future
— Life and Fate, Part Two
Man is made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy is worthy of being called a man
— Uncle Vanya (Act II)
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there, every day, waiting to be heard.
— Life and Fate, Part 2, Chapter 41
Truth is not found in the well, but in the depths of the heart
— Poem in 'After Russia', 1928
We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves
— Maxims, No. 119
Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself
— Either/Or, 1843
It is a sin to lack courage at the moment of decision; the tragic is always born from the refusal to act
— Kolyma Tales (first published 1954)
Her smile was like a distant spring thaw in the icy silence of a northern forest
— Poem, early 20th century; specific citation uncertain
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it
— Sculpting in Time, Chapter 6
But how much land does a man need?
— How Much Land Does a Man Need? (short story)
Sometimes the harshest winter brings forth the most fragrant blossom; suffering not only scars, but sows seeds that flower in the hidden garden of the heart
— Poem, "Plantain" (1921)
Happy people have no history
— Anna Karenina, Part I
Better to be without logic than without feeling
— Notes from Underground
Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and all the agonies of the soul, but for all time his most tormenting tragedy has been, is, and will be, the tragedy of the bedroom
— Short story: The Lady with the Dog (1899)
The snow was melting, and it seemed to him that the tears in his heart would never dry
— First Love
He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing cannot be an artist
— Letter to A. S. Suvorin, October 27, 1888
The calendar is a mechanical device, but time itself is a mystery, fleeting, elusive, and boundless as the winds over the steppe
— Essay in A Hunter's Sketches
Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy; only because of that
— Notes from Underground
To love is to see a miracle invisible to others
— Collected Poems
The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness
— Notes from Underground, Part II
It’s astonishing how much you can suffer because of the suffering of another person
— Life and Fate, Part 2
There is nothing more difficult than to be honest with oneself
— War and Peace, Book XIII
To be conscious is to suffer
— Notes from Underground
You must learn to forgive life for being exactly as it is
— Fathers and Sons
I want to live and not betray the child within me
— Poem, 1922, translation by Elaine Feinstein
I want to live and not betray the child within me
— Doctor Zhivago
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path
— Dhammapada, Verse 165
All that is mine, I carry with me
— Quoted in various essays and attributed as a classical dictum in Bunin's works
Oblomov lay in bed, his mind empty, drifting slowly between drowsiness and eternity, as if waiting for life to begin without him
— Oblomov, Part I
To judge others is always so simple, to know oneself is always so hard
— A Month in the Country (Act I)
He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how
— Man's Search for Meaning (1946)
Man is made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy is worthy of being called a man
— Notebook entry, 1897
Man must work, only then does he deserve his bread
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
The fire in the hearth is not kindled for warmth alone, but to keep fear at bay in the hours when the wind speaks with the voice of the steppe
— Collected Poems (unknown poem)
To love someone means to see them as God intended them
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part IV, Book 12
You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible
— The Cherry Orchard, Act II
I love the autumn—that melancholy season that suits memories so well
— A Month in the Country, Act III
Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that
— Demons (The Devils)
Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it
— Bayonet, 1915 (essay and poem)
There are sufferings that have lost their memory and do not remember why they are so heavy
— Poem Without a Hero (1940s)
I am not one of those who left the land of their fathers coldly and indifferently; for me separation from home is always a kind of death
— Selected Letters
Even in Siberia there is happiness
— The House of the Dead
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience
— War and Peace
Silent tears have the loudest echo in a soul not yet reconciled with its own grief
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter XXI
Man should be not only proud of his country, but even more proud of his humanity
— Address to Young People, 1917
We are asleep until we fall in love
— War and Peace
Time, like a river, flows backwards in the heart
— The Master and Margarita
To be too conscious is an illness—a real thoroughgoing illness
— Notes from Underground
To live without hope is to cease to live
— Notes from Underground
There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy
— Rudin, Chapter 11
A thought that is not felt is not true, and a feeling that is not thought out is not right
— Solitaria, Essay Collection
Every leaf of the tree becomes a tiny torch when backlit by the sun
— Poem from 'After Russia' (1928)
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how
— Demons (The Possessed)
He who has never risked anything will never be free
— My Childhood (1913)
There is something in the Russian soul that rejoices in suffering, taking every sorrow as a promise of eventual grace
— Silentium!, 1830s-era private letter
Life did not stop, and one had to live
— One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, end of the novel
Every man carries within himself a spark ready to ignite or to be extinguished by a single gesture
— Poems, 1920s
I have outlived many who were better than I, but not wiser
— Life and Fate (novel), Part Two
What does it matter if, in the end, the road only returns us to the place from which we started? It is the journey that shapes the heart, not the destination
— Life and Fate, Part 2, Section 63
There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 18
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
— Anna Karenina, opening line
A man is free the moment he wishes to be
— The Blind Musician (1886)
Each word is a rung on the endless ladder between silence and the storm.
— The Foundation Pit (1930)
Everything will pass, and the suffering will pass too
— Letter to his son, 1856
The mystery of human existence is not just in staying alive, but in finding something to live for
— The Brothers Karamazov
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness
— Anna Karenina
Hope is the pillar that holds up the world
— The Lower Depths
One must be merciless to oneself; never forgive a single slip
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 1888
To regret the past is to lose the future
— Fathers and Sons, Part 1, Chapter 6
My past is like a cathedral, a silent building, and when the quiet comes I wander its echoing halls
— Poem: My Past (1913)
The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths
— Eugene Onegin, Chapter VII
The darker the night, the brighter the stars
— Crime and Punishment
There is nothing more lasting than the temporary
— The Master and Margarita
Even the purest snow is sorrowed by the first footstep, but it is still the promise of a new world
— Poem from the 'Requiem' Cycle
In Russia, everything is gray, covered with dust, silence, expectation, and at the same time, something forever trembling, about to break into laughter or into tears
— Red Cavalry (introduction)
Time goes by, and everything changes, except human sorrow, which stays just the same
— Uncle Vanya
Every happiness is built on the ruins of some forgotten sorrow
— Rudin (1856)
You must learn to see things as they are, not as they appear to be
— Letter to Aleksey Suvorin, October 27, 1888
Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in
— Speech at the Anti-Fascist Congress of Writers, Paris, 1935
Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion
— Quoted by the character Olga in 'Three Sisters'
Man is like a piano: the keys are both black and white, and the music depends on which you choose to play
— Attributed—various letters
After all, it is absurd to suppose that the whole collection of events that can happen to a man in his lifetime will fit easily into one little tale
— Oblomov (1859)
Art destroys silence, and this is its one and only virtue
— Essay: The Magic of Words (1910)
One must have the courage to go where the silence is deepest, for only then is the world heard in its true voice
— Poems of 1922
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting
— The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
If you look for perfection, you will never be content
— Anna Karenina, Part 4, Chapter 7
To be without hope is to be without God in the world
— The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it
— Family Happiness (novella, 1859)
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere
— The Notebook of Anton Chekhov (notebooks/letters, 1890s)
The soul is healed by being with children
— The Idiot, Part II
Life and conscience are the same thing, just as the sun and its light are the same
— Letter to Nikolai Strakhov, 1876
To think of Russia is to think of birches, snow, and the long patience of suffering
— Dark Avenues (Temnye allei), story preface, 1943
The cleverest of all is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month
— The Idiot, Part IV, Chapter 7
To expect nothing, to want nothing, to depend on nothing is the only way to avoid disappointment
— Poems in Prose (1882), XXVII. Enough
What is strength if not the ability to bear solitude
— Essay: My Pushkin, 1937
Man is like a novel: until the very last page you don’t know how it will end
— Virgin Soil (1877), novel
The more a man is able to forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses his life undergoes
— Fathers and Sons, 1862
Fear has its use but cowardice has none
— The Master and Margarita, Chapter 18
If you want to be understood—listen
— Autobiographical Sketches (various essays)
To love someone means to see them as God intended them
— The Brothers Karamazov
To speak the truth is easy and pleasant; to be silent in the face of falsehood is torment
— Fathers and Sons
But if we wait for life to be easy before we decide to be happy, we might spend our whole lives waiting
— .
One must bear chaos within to give birth to a dancing star
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Human life occurs only once, and therefore so many people are soft and unprincipled
— Letter to A. S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)
Life's joy always comes later, when one has grown accustomed to sorrow
— The Gentleman from San Francisco (1915)
Who could be nearer to me than myself, yet there is no one whom I understand less than I do myself.
— A Hero of Our Time
To be wholly alive is to be vulnerable
— Lectures on Literature (lecture on Franz Kafka)
Only one who knows separation can understand what is the power of love
— The Poem of the End (1924)
There are moments when time stands still, and at such moments you realize how much depends on a single heartbeat
— Doctor Zhivago (1957)
The heart has its own memory, and that is stronger than oblivion itself
— Poems of Moscow
All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path
— Poem Without a Hero (1942–1962)
We shall be as a violin, played by the hands of fate; our only choice the music we let resound in the world
— Unknown; attributed in memoirs and letters
Nothing is stronger than a word spoken from the depth of silence
— Conversation about Dante, 1933 essay
There is nothing in this world more constant than inconsistency
— On the Eve (1860)
Every word is a footprint upon the snowfall of time, vanishing even as it is made
— Travelers' Sketches, 1933
A great mind is a prison for its owner—a cell with light enough to reveal the bars
— Kolyma Tales, ca. 1950s
Art is the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life
— Demons (The Possessed), Notebook entry
Every new truth is first ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted as self-evident
— From the Other Shore
Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part II, Book IV, Chapter 2
There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all
— War and Peace, Book 10, Chapter 16
I am learning to endure the absence of hope, like a wound which does not heal but teaches one to live differently
— Life and Fate
The forest is not silent, it speaks with a thousand voices
— Sketches from a Hunter’s Album (1852)
Life did not stop, and one had to live
— War and Peace, Book Ten, Chapter XXXIX
I know not what my soul is or what soul is at all. I only know that the winds of morning blow through the city and that I taste them as I taste obliteration
— Poem: The Age
I know that my life is no longer my own, that it belongs to those who are waiting for it to become useful
— Doctor Zhivago, context: Zhivago's internal reflections
There are no guilty people; there are only people who are more guilty than others
— The Duel
The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night
— Speak, Memory, Chapter 1
I have measured my life in faint echoes and sudden clamors; memory is my only clock
— Petersburg (1913), paraphrasing of character’s inner thought
We are asleep until we turn our attention to ourselves, and then we are astonished to find ourselves still alive
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888
Man is born to live, not to prepare for life
— Doctor Zhivago
To be conscious of being, you need another consciousness nearby
— Life and Fate (1960), Part 2
In the silence, we listen for footsteps that have not yet arrived but have always been with us
— The Foundation Pit
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future
— Unknown; attributed in multiple sources and letters
Beneath the snow, the earth remembers everything; so do we, beneath our silences
— The Foundation Pit (1930)
The most terrible poverty is the poverty of the heart, when you have nothing left to feel with
— Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850)
I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea
— Notes from Underground
The steppe’s silence is broken only by the wind remembering a sorrow it cannot name
— Red Cavalry
I am a sick man... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man
— Notes from Underground, opening lines
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent
— From her notebooks and essays
The pine trees, burdened with snow, did not bend but stood firm, and I knew then that there is a joy in bearing silently what cannot be changed
— Stories, various
We are asleep until we awaken ourselves with a question that cannot be answered
— Poem: The Word (circa 1943)
A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is, and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction
— Self-reflection, 1860s
There are moments when the silence in a room is more eloquent than the words spoken through an entire lifetime
— Selected Stories
Man does not live by bread alone; he must have something to look forward to as well.
— Cancer Ward (1966)
Poetry is the echo of the melody of the universe in the hearts of humans.
— Lecture Notes, 1940s
The future is only the past again, entered through another gate
— The Slynx (2000)
The soul’s poverty is felt most sharply when silence falls between two kindred hearts
— Poem from the cycle ‘Requiem’ (1935-1940)
Everything I know, I know because of love
— War and Peace, Part II, Book V
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
— Fathers and Sons (1862)
When the heart is full of love, it becomes a sun and everyone it touches grows
— Poem, 1922 (Collected Poems)
I am not sorry for loving, though love is always a trial, a pain and sometimes a curse
— Poems of Anna Akhmatova
To think is to forget differences, to generalize, to abstract
— Personal Notebook, 1920s
Above all, don't lose hope—it's the soul's last defense against chaos
— Doctor Zhivago
If you wish to glimpse the soul of a nation, seek it in the stories of its simplest people as they sit by candlelight against the night
— The Enchanted Wanderer (1873)
I want to live, to think, to struggle, to love and to hate, to suffer and to rejoice, to live and not to die
— Letter to his brother Alexander, 1889
Nothing is ever completely lost to us as long as we remember it
— The Master and Margarita (novel)
To be kind is more important than to be right
— Life and Fate (1959)
We must take life as we find it, but we should try to leave it a little better than we found it
— Doctor Zhivago
All of us are insane, only to different degrees
— Smoke, Chapter XI
Everything in the world is mutable, that is true, but we must not forget that the world, too, consists of people, and that if only people would wish to, everything in the world could be changed instantly.
— War and Peace, Part Four, XV
It is amazing what you can get used to when you must, after all human beings are adaptable creatures
— Fathers and Sons
To understand another’s soul is the rarest act of grace
— Letter to Boris Pasternak (1926)
Even in Siberia there is happiness
— Letter to a friend, 1890
Be afraid of a man who has read only one book
— The Master and Margarita, novel
A word spoken is past recalling, like an arrow already flown
— Rudin (novel), Chapter 6
One must live for the tiny hope of light that flickers behind the closed doors of despair
— Life and Fate
But man is a creature who gets used to everything, and that, I think, is the best definition of him
— Notes from Underground, Part I, Section V
Habit is heaven’s own redress; it takes the place of happiness
— Anna Karenina (1877)
The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize
— Letter to Alexander Blok, 1907
Man needs happiness and if he is unhappy he needs to be convinced that he is happy; all the same, happiness exists only in his imagination.
— The Cherry Orchard
But how could you live and have no story to tell
— White Nights
To love someone means to see them as God intended them
— The Brothers Karamazov
To love means to open oneself to the suffering of another, to strive not to be understood but to understand
— Life and Fate (1959)
The closer one gets to the grave, the more one values simplicity, goodness, and truth
— Fathers and Sons
Genius gives birth, talent delivers
— Lectures on Russian Literature, on Gogol
Man is what he reads
— . Published essays and interviews
If you force people to be silent, they will begin to hate, and their hatred will just come out in another form
— We, Record One
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness
— Anna Karenina, Part I, Chapter III
The only thing that matters in life is the will to keep walking, even when the path is dark and unknown
— Life and Fate
The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own
— First Love
To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others
— Recollections of Childhood (Autobiographical Reminiscences)
Honor, conscience, and love are eternal in man; they are not destroyed by hunger, poverty, or death
— On the Eve, Chapter XVIII
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man
— The Brothers Karamazov (Book III, Chapter 3)
In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot
— The Captive Mind
To live without poetry, without music, without affection, is not to live at all
— Doctor Zhivago, Part II
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation cited in Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope
How much sorrow there is in one world, and yet how much beauty, too
— Letter, 1947
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life
— Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, 1796
Man has been given reason, spirit and the power of feeling so that he may lift himself out of the mud, and become, not a handful of mud, but a spirit
— Letter to his brother Alexander, May 10, 1886
We are asleep until we love
— War and Peace, Part 2
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise
— Life and Fate
Man is what he reads
— On Grief and Reason: Essays
A word aptly uttered or written, like a seed cast upon fertile soil, will not be lost
— Selected Letters, 1846
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There’s no place where more people are killed for it
— Conversation, collected in Mandelstam’s prose and letters
New sorrows, old joy, only the hands trembling are always the same
— Poem: Requiem, 1935–1940
To think, to feel, to suffer, to devote oneself and, in the end, to cast it all away like a faded flower—such is a human destiny
— Life and Fate
The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment—as well as prison
— Crime and Punishment, Part I
The cleverest of all is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month
— The Idiot, Part IV, Chapter 7
At the summit of every great moment in life, a chasm opens beneath us, whispering its secrets in a tongue we must not ignore
— Life and Fate
Life is heavy, difficult, a burden. But in its weight is its dignity and its truth; only those who carry it find their own measure
— Life and Fate, Part Two
There is nothing in this world more difficult than candor, and nothing easier than flattery.
— Ariadne (short story)
What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness
— Anna Karenina, Part VIII, Chapter X
The snowstorm grew fiercer, spinning and whirling and swallowing up the whole world, but there was still the faint, trembling light of a single window in the darkness
— First Love, published 1860
The calendar is a mechanical device, but time itself is a mystery, fleeting, elusive, and boundless as the winds over the steppe
— Dark Avenues
You see, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the reasoning part of a man’s being, while longing is a whole life
— Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter 2
Time, like a river, flows backwards in the heart
— A Precocious Autobiography (1963)
Man’s greatest strength lies not in his fists, but in the meek breaking of his own pride
— Life and Fate, Part 2
Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel
— Crime and Punishment, Part I, Chapter 6
To be alive, to be able to speak, to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings—it’s all a miracle
— Interview, 1965 (recounted in Akhmatova’s later years)
The stronger a man is, the simpler he is; and the simpler he is, the stronger he is
— War and Peace, Book Eleven, Chapter 20
Life is not about understanding mysteries, but about reconciling oneself to them
— Rudin (1856)
The most difficult thing—but an essential one—is to love life, to love it even while one suffers, because life is all, life is God, and to love life means to love God
— Doctor Zhivago
A hundred suspicions do not make a proof
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, October 27, 1888
History is not a river flowing through time but a field overturned again and again by human hands
— Doctor Zhivago
To think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease
— The Black Monk
I sit in my cell and think, and what I think is this: the world is a riddle, and it is given to no one to solve it. But to keep pondering is the only dignity we possess
— Kolyma Tales
The frost bites hardest at dawn, but every morning brings its own kind of promise
— Doctor Zhivago (novel)
In the struggle between the stone and the water, in the end, the water wins
— From interviews and lectures
Poetry is respected only in this country—people are killed for it. There's no place where more people are killed for it
— Memoirs (Hope Against Hope), as recollected by Nadezhda Mandelstam
To be silent when one should shout is a crime against the heart
— Poem, 1939 (Collected Poems)
A man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that.
— Demons (also known as The Devils or The Possessed)
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well
— Letter to A.S. Suvorin, April 21, 1895
Everything depends on upbringing. Yet we act as though only the most trivial things were at stake. It is the only thing; a child must be raised properly, with love, with discipline, and with understanding. All our fate is decided there.
— Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 30 March 1897
We are asleep until we awaken ourselves with a question that cannot be answered
— Requiem (contextual paraphrase from the sequence)
And I want to be, I want my whole life to be, as much as possible, life; the real, the true life, burning and conscious, and good
— Doctor Zhivago, Part 2, Chapter 5
I want to be understood by my own country, but if I fail to be understood—what then? I shall pass through my native land, like a traveler, mute and lost, and the people will not notice my sorrow, nor will they pity me
— Poem Without a Hero (published 1940s–1960s); section: Epilogue
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking
— Anna Karenina, Part 1, Chapter 34
Every man carries a room within himself, which he enters to find both his judge and his pardon
— Reflections in The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be oneself
— Either/Or, 1843
There is nothing more sublime than to face our misfortune with dignity
— Letter to his brother Alexander, May 10th, 1886
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
— Speech at Chautauqua, New York, 1936
We are asleep until we awaken ourselves with a question that cannot be answered
— Life and Fate
Every happy man is obliged to have some measure of blindness
— The Gift (1938), Part IV
The snow is falling; it falls and falls, as if it doesn’t want to stop, as if it wants to cover up everything in the world
— The Village (novel, 1910)
The forest is not silent, it speaks with a thousand voices
— Heart of a Dog
Man has been given reason, spirit and the power of feeling so that he may lift himself out of the mud, and become, not a handful of mud, but a spirit
— The Master and Margarita, Part Two, Chapter 29
Spring is the time of plans and projects
— Anna Karenina (Part II, Chapter I)
To love with human love is to be weak, to love with divine love is to become invincible
— Life and Fate, Book Two
To love someone means to see them as God intended them
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter 3
No voice, no pen, no taste of fame can ever tell what the heart is resigned to in silence—day by day, dream by dream, we build our inner empire against the storm
— Letter to Rilke, 1926
The only thing I fear is not being worthy of my sufferings
— Letters to Natalya Fonvizina, December 22, 1849
The past is never dead, it is not even past; every minute is carrying its dead with it, and the living must walk on top of graves
— Life and Fate, Part II
The soul must be as wide as the sky, so that a little cloud of grief may pass and not obscure it
— Reminiscences of Leo Tolstoy, Recollections and Essays (1919)
There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind
— Notes from Underground, Part I, Chapter XI
A man’s soul may be likened to an abyss: throw a stone into it, and for how long will you wait for the sound of its fall?
— The Garnet Bracelet
There is no greater misfortune than to not dare to be happy
— The Story of an Unknown Man
Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved
— The Idiot, Part IV
A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent
— Fragment, 1915
All that glitters is not gold, and not all those who wander are lost
— Dead Souls, Part I
The soul is healed by being with children
— The Idiot
The silence of a wise man is more thunderous than the crowd’s applause
— Essay: On Poetry and Reality
Man is tender towards what he loves and cruel towards what he hates
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 21
The only thing I fear is not being worthy of my sufferings
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter IV
The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving
— War and Peace, Book X, Chapter 13
The darker the night, the brighter the stars
— Crime and Punishment (Part IV, Chapter IV)
Habit is heaven’s own redress; it takes the place of happiness
— The Brothers Karamazov, Book IV, Chapter 7
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal
— attributed, Letters and Diaries
A time will come when people will take delight in one another, when each will be a brother and a friend to the other, and only then will life be at last as it ought to be
— The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877)
A man is not afraid of dying; he is afraid of being forgotten
— Life and Fate, Book 2, Part 4
We are waves of the same sea, leaves of the same tree, flowers of the same garden
— Speech, 1921, Berlin
We live in hope, and in expectation, that something good, better than what has gone before, will come to us for our joy and our comfort, but nothing ever does, and so life passes away
— Fathers and Sons, Part II, Chapter XII
To love means to suffer and there can be no love otherwise
— Life and Fate, Part Two
There are doors that cannot be opened by force, only by the heavy key of remembrance
— The Village
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest
— A Confession
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold
— Letter to his son Sergey, 1897
Heaven only knows why we love those we love
— Fathers and Sons, Chapter 19