Nikolai Gogol Quotes
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Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.
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What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?
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He who has talent in him must be purer in soul than anyone else. Another will be forgiven much, but to him it will not be forgiven. A man who leaves the house in bright, festive clothes needs only one drop of mud splashed from under a wheel, and people all surround him, point their fingers at him, and talk about his slovenliness, while the same people ignore many spots on other passers-by who are wearing everyday clothes. For on everyday clothes the spots do not show.
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For public opinion does not admit that lofty rapturous laughter is worthy to stand beside lofty lyrical emotion and that there isall the difference in the world between it and the antics of a clown at a fair.
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The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.
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But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.
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Countless are, as the sand in the sea, the deep desires of men, and none resembles the other, and all of them, whether shameful, or great, in the beginning are obedient, but later become terrible masters over him.
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Countless as the sands of sea are human passions, and not all of them are alike, and all of them, base and noble alike, are at first obedient to man and only later on become his terrible masters.
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Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all.
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I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.
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However stupid a fools words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.
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Man is such a wondrous being that it is never possible to count up all his merits at once. The more you study him, the more new particulars appear, and their description would be endless.
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Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.
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You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.
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They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know.
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We ought to thank God for that. Yes, the man who tills the land is more worthy of respect than any.
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There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.
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There are occasions when a woman, no matter how weak and impotent in character she may be in comparison with a man, will yet suddenly become not only harder than any man, but even harder than anything and everything in the world.
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Gambling is the great leveller. All men are equal- at cards.
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it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.
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What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.
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A time of famine and poverty will come and the people as a whole as well as every individual in it will suffer.
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As countless as grains of sand by the sea are human passions, and they all differ; all of them, vile or lofty, begin by being under a man's control and then become his terrible masters. Blessed is he who has chosen the most lofty of passions: his immeasurable bliss grows and multiplies tenfold with every hour and minute, and he penetrates deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul.
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Go along, go along quickly, and set all you have on the table for us. We don't want doughnuts, honey buns, poppy cakes, and other dainties; bring us a whole sheep, serve a goat and forty-year old mead! And plenty of vodka, not vodka with all sorts of fancies, not with raisins and flavorings, but pure foaming vodka, that hisses and bubbles like mad.