Nikolai Gogol Quotes

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

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

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.

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.

As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind... Why is it that even in moments of unthinking, careless gaiety a different and strange mood comes upon one?

This was not the old Chichikov. This was some wreckage of the old Chichikov. The inner state of his soul might be compared to a demolished building, which has been demolished so that from it a new one could be built; but the new one has not been started yet, because the infinitive plan has not yet come from the architect and the workers are left in perplexity.

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

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

In the course of reading he [Alexander Pushkin] 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!"

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

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.

There are occasions when a woman, no matter how weak and impotent in character she may be in comparison with a man, will yet suddenly become not only harder than any man, but even harder than anything and everything in the world.

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.

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

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

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

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

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