Mikhail Lermontov Quotes

And I, as I lived, in an alien land Will die a slave and an orphan.

...man, this ruler over general evil, With a perfidious heart, with a lying tongue...

I want to reconcile myself with heaven, I want to love, I want to pray, I want to believe in good.

Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.

For what did the creator prepare me, Why did he so terribly contradict The hopes of my youth?...

I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.

What is this eternity to me without you? What is the infinity of my domains? Empty ringing words, A spacious temple — without a divinity!

Farewell, unwashed Russia, Land of slaves, land of masters, And you, blue uniforms, And you, people, devoted to them. Perhaps beyond the wall of the Caucasus, I will hide from your pashas, From their all-seeing eye, From their all-hearing ears.

Women! Women! Who can understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and allure, but the tone of their voice repels.

I do not love you; the former dream Of passions and torments has passed by; But your image in my soul Is still alive, although it is powerless; Although I abandon myself to other dreams, I still cannot forget it; So an abandoned temple is still a temple, A dethroned idol — still a god!

I was involuntarily struck by the aptitude which the Russian displays for accommodating himself to the customs of the people in whose midst he happens to be living. I know not whether this mental quality is deserving of censure or commendation, but it proves the incredible pliancy of his mind and the presence of that clear common sense which pardons evil wherever it sees that evil is inevitable or impossible of annihilation.

Women love only those whom they do not know!

And everything that he saw before him He despised or hated.

In people's eyes I read Pages of malice and sin.

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.