Top 15 Mikhail Lermontov Quotes

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.

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

No, it is not you I love so ardently, The glitter of your beauty is not for me: I love in you my past suffering And my perished youth.

What good are the passions? For sooner or later their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up;
And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard is stupid and empty — a joke.

The surrounding forest, as though in a mist, Was blue in the powder of smoke. But there, far off, in a disordered ridge, Which was yet eternally proud and calm, Stretched the mountains — and Kazbek Gleamed with its sharp peak. And with secret, heartfelt sorrow I thought: 'Pitiable man. What does he want! The sky is clear, Beneath it there is much room for all, But constantly and vainly He alone wages war — why?'

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

To the earth I gave the earthly tribute Of love, hopes, good and evil; I am ready to begin another life, I am silent and wait: the time has come; I shall leave no brother in this world, And dark and cold embrace My tired soul; Like a premature fruit, deprived of sap, It withered in the storms of fate Under the burning sun of existence.

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

I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectator Of my triumph or my doom...

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!

The chain of young life is broken, The journey is ended, the hour has struck, it is time to leave, Time to go where there is no future, No past, no eternity, no years; Where there are no expectations, no passions, No bitter tears, no fame, no honour; Where memory sleeps deeply And the heart in its narrow coffin home Does not feel the worm gnawing it.

Alone, as before, in the universe Without hope and without love!..

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

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

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