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.
Nikolai GogolDo we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.
Nikolai GogolI tell everyone very plainly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? Why, greyhound puppies. That's a totally different matter.
Nikolai GogolThe more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.
Nikolai GogolLike 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, magnanimity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence--and with all that, a generous mixture of self-love, ambition, vanity, petty personal ticklishness, and a good many of those things which a man simply cannot do without.
Nikolai Gogol