Nikolai Gogol Quotes

Among a number of intelligent suggestions there was finally this one too, strange as it may seem, that Chichikov might be Napoleon in disguise...

Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika?

I am very fond of the modest manner of life of those solitary owners of remote villages, who in Little Russia are commonly called "old-fashioned," who are like tumbledown picturesque little houses, delightful in their simplicity and complete unlikeness to the new smooth buildings whose walls have not yet been discolored by the rain, whose roofs are not yet covered with green lichen, and whose porch does not display its bricks through the peeling stucco.

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

Dogs are clever fellows; they know all about politics [...]

In the course of reading he 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!"

However, nothing turned out as Tchitchikoff had intended.

there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word

...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.

To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil—hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon.

And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, 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.

I shall laugh my bitter laugh.

When the priest went in, he stopped short at the sight of this defamation of God's holy place, and dared not serve the requiem on such a spot. And so the church was left forever, with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, was overgrown with forest trees, roots, rough grass and wild thorns, and no one can now find the way to it.

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

[Final lines] mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place. Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?