Nikolai Gogol Quotes

However stupid a fools words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.

Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all

I am who I am and that's who I am

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.

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

There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something.

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.

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral... Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That's my idea.

But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: “This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life.

We have the marvelous gift of making everything insignificant.

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

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

It's the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable.

Ah, steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Hearing the familiar song from above, all in one accord you strain your bronze chests and, hooves barely touching the ground, turn into straight lines cleaving the air, and all inspired by God it rushes on!

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.

I saw that I'd get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.

As you pass from the tender years of youth into harsh and embittered manhood, make sure you take with you on your journey all the human emotions! Don't leave them on the road, for you will not pick them up afterwards!

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.

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

But wise is the man who disdains no character, but with searching glance explores him to the root and cause of all.

Gambling is the great leveller. All men are equal- at cards.

They don’t listen to me, they don’t hear me, they don’t see me.

How much savage coarseness is concealed in refined, cultivated manners.

I tell everyone very plainly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? Why, greyhound puppies. That's a totally different matter.

What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.

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

The more debris there is the more it will show the governor's activity.

Steeds, steeds, what steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?

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?

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.

As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?

...and sank into the profound slumber which comes only to such fortunate folk as are troubled neither with mosquitoes nor fleas nor excessive activity of brain.

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

Two turtle doves will show thee Where my cold ashes lie And sadly murmuring tell thee How in tears I did die

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.

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

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

Keep not money, but keep good people's company.

Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.

In the course of reading he [Alexander Pushkin] became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading was over he uttered in a voice full of sorrow: "Goodness, how sad is our Russia!"

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

Don't blame the mirror if your face is faulty.

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

It is well-known that there are many faces in the world over the finishing of which nature did not take much trouble, did not employ any fine tools such as files, gimlets, and so on, but simply hacked them out with round strokes: one chop-a nose appears; another chop-lips appear; eyes are scooped out with a big drill; and she lets it go into the world rough-hewn, saing: "ALIVE!

This was not the old Chichikov. This was some wreckage of the old Chichikov. The inner state of his soul might be compared to a demolished building, which has been demolished so that from it a new one could be built; but the new one has not been started yet, because the infinitive plan has not yet come from the architect and the workers are left in perplexity.

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

[F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.

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.

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.