Nikolai Gogol Quotes

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

Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

In the end dreams became his life, and his whole life thereafter took a strange turn: one might say he slept while waking and watched while asleep.

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

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.

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

We have the marvelous gift of making everything insignificant.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I shall laugh my bitter laugh.

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

The Lord grant we may all be tillers of the soil.

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

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

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.

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

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

...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.

Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?

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

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

There exists a kind of laughter which is worthy to be ranked with the higher lyric emotions and is infinitely different from the twitching of a mean merrymaker.

[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.

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.

The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.

Woman is in love with the devil.

Seek ye not riches, seek but the society of good men.