49 Aleksandr Pushkin Quotes

Aleksandr Pushkin quotes

1. The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

2. Upon the brink of the wild stream He stood, and dreamt a mighty dream.

3. And thus He mused: 'From here, indeed Shall we strike terror in the Swede? And here a city by our labor Founded, shall gall our haughty neighbor; 'Here cut' - so Nature gives command - Your window through on Europe; stand Firm-footed by the sea, unchanging!

4. 'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time! For rest the heart is aching; Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking Fragments of being, while together you and I Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.

5. When the loud day for men who sow and reap Grows still, and on the silence of the town The insubstantial veils of night and sleep, The meed of the day's labour, settle down, Then for me in the stillness of the night The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course, And in the idle darkness comes the bite Of all the burning serpents of remorse; Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities Are swarming in my over-burdened soul, And Memory before my wakeful eyes With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll. Then, as with loathing I peruse the years, I tremble, and I curse my natal day, Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears, But cannot wash the woeful script away.

6. But, as it is, this pied collection begs your indulgence - it's been spun from threads both sad and humoristic, themes popular or idealistic, products of carefree hours, of fun, of sleeplessness, faint inspirations, of powers unripe, or on the wane, of reason's icy intimations, and records of a heart in pain.

7. There yet remains but one concluding tale, And then this chronicle of mine is ended- Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me, A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord Put me to witness much for many years And educate me in the love of books. One day some indefatigable monk Will find my conscientious, unsigned work; Like me, he will light up his ikon-lamp And, shaking from the scroll the age-old dust, He will transcribe these tales in all their truth.

8. Unforced, as conversation passed, he had the talent of saluting felicitously every theme, of listening like a judge-supreme while serious topics were disputing, or, with an epigram-surprise, of kindling smiles in ladies' eyes.

9. Always contented with his life, and with his dinner, and his wife.

10. A man who's active and incisive can yet keep nail-care much in mind: why fight what's known to be decisive? custom is despot of mankind.

11. The illness with which he'd been smitten should have been analysed when caught, something like spleen, that scourge of Britain, or Russia's chondria, for short.

12. Love passed, the Muse appeared, the weather of mind got clarity new-found; now free, I once more weave together emotion, thought, and magic sound.

13. Habit is Heaven's own redress: it takes the place of happiness.

14. The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely In the flattering toils of philandery.

15. The clock of doom had struck as fated; the poet, without a sound, let fall his pistol on the ground.

16. Moscow... how many strains are fusing in that one sound, for Russian hearts! what store of riches it imparts!

17. Sad that our finest aspiration Our freshest dreams and meditations, In swift succession should decay, Like Autumn leaves that rot away.

18. Pimen [writing in front of a sacred lamp]: One more, the final record, and my annals Are ended, and fulfilled the duty laid By God on me a sinner. Not in vain Hath God appointed me for many years A witness, teaching me the art of letters; A day will come when some laborious monk Will bring to light my zealous, nameless toil, Kindle, as I, his lamp, and from the parchment Shaking the dust of ages will transcribe My true narrations.

19. Like some magistrate grown gray in office, Calmly he contemplates alike the just And unjust, with indifference he notes Evil and good, and knows not wrath nor pity.

20. Ah! heavy art thou, crown of Monomakh!

21. Mosalsky: Good folk! Maria Godunov and her son Feodor have poisoned themselves. We have seen their dead bodies. [The People are silent with horror.] Why are ye silent? Cry, Long live the Tsar Dimitry Ivanovich! [The People are speechless.]

22. 'The bread of the stranger is bitter,' says Dante, 'and his staircase hard to climb.' But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?

23. 'I have come to you against my wish,' she said in a firm voice: 'but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna.'

24. Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.

25. 'Ace has won!' cried Hermann, showing his card. 'Your queen has lost,' said Chekalinsky, politely. Hermann started; instead of an ace, there lay before him the queen of spades! He could not believe his eyes, nor could he understand how he had made such a mistake. At that moment it seemed to him that the queen of spades smiled ironically and winked her eye at him. He was struck by her remarkable resemblance... 'The old Countess!' he exclaimed, seized with terror.

26. Hermann went out of his mind, and is now confined in room Number 17 of the Obukhov Hospital. He never answers any questions, but he constantly mutters with unusual rapidity: 'Three, seven, ace!' 'Three, seven, queen!'

27. Ecstasy is a glassful of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth.

1. Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief - your time for joy will come, believe me.

2. Thank you, darling, for learning to play chess. It is an absolute necessity for any well organized family. (in a letter to his wife)

3. With womankind, the less we love them, the easier they become to charm.

4. Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane...

5. Please, never despise the translator. He's the mailman of human civilization.

6. Then came a moment of renaissance, I looked up - you again are there, A fleeting vision, the quintessence Of all that's beautiful and rare.

7. Try to be forgotten. Go live in the country. Stay in mourning for two years, then remarry, but choose somebody decent.

8. It's a lucky man, a very lucky man, who is committed to what he believes, who has stifled intellectual detachment and can relax in the luxury of his emotions - like a tipsy traveller resting for the night at wayside inn.

9. I have outlasted all desire, My dreams and I have grown apart; My grief alone is left entire, The gleamings of an empty heart. The storms of ruthless dispensation Have struck my flowery garland numb, I live in lonely desolation And wonder when my end will come. Thus on a naked tree-limb, blasted By tardy winter's whistling chill, A single leaf which has outlasted Its season will be trembling still.

10. Thus people--so it seems to me-- Become good friends from sheer ennui.

11. It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.

12. Cabbage soup and barley. They're Russia's national food. Both excellent in their way, but a shade monotonous.

13. To love all ages yield surrender; But to the young it's raptures bring A blessing bountiful and tender- As storms refresh the fields of spring.

14. Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.

15. I was not born to amuse the Tsars.

16. Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

17. Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.

18. My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you...

19. Write for pleasure and publish for money.

20. It is a shame that who collects quotes has missed Pushkin's quotes.It clearly shows the quality of the sight of the site.

21. Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.

22. If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.