Mikhail Lermontov Quotes
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Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.
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I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.
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I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectator Of my triumph or my doom.
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What is this eternity to me without you? What is the infinity of my domains? Empty ringing words, A spacious temple - without a divinity!
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I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.
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I want to reconcile myself with heaven, I want to love, I want to pray, I want to believe in good.
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He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace.
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We practically always excuse things when we understand them.
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Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.
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We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment.
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A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.
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In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow.
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You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand... but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.
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In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.
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My love had grown one with my soul; it became darker, but did not go out.
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Happiness comes the way the wind blows.
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And I, as I lived, in an alien land Will die a slave and an orphan.
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Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.
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It is sad to see a young man's fondest hopes and dreams shattered when the rose-colured veil is plucked away and he sees the actions and feelings of men for what they are. But he still has the hope of replacing his old illusions with others, just as fleeting, but also just as sweet.
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No good ever becomes of a man who forgets an old friend.
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My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
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Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.
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I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.
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For what did the creator prepare me, Why did he so terribly contradict The hopes of my youth?