Quotes by Nikolai Gogol

“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...”

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

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

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

“You see, wisdom does not come with grey hairs.”

“I am who I am and that's who I am”

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

“I must confess that I do not understand why things are so arranged, that women seize us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot: either their hands are so constructed, or else our n...”

“Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.”

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

“But the future is unknown, and stands before a man like autumnal fogs rising from the swamps; birds fly foolishly up and down in it with flapping wings, never recognizing each other, the dove seein...”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“But there is nothing enduring in the world, and therefore even joy in the second minute is already not as acute as in the first; in the third minute it becomes still weaker and finally merges unnot...”

“The human feelings, which had never been very deep in him, grew shallower every hour, and every day something more dropped away from the decrepit wreck.”

“Watch out, brother,' his professor had told him more than once, 'you have talent; it would be a sin to ruin it. But you're impatient. Some one thing entices you, some one thing takes your fancyand ...”