32 quotes
Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
What is this eternity to me without you?
What is the infinity of my domains?
Empty ringing words,
A spacious temple — without a divinity!
The Demon (1830)
In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
For what did the creator prepare me,
Why did he so terribly contradict
The hopes of my youth?...
My future is in darkness (1837)
Women! Women! Who can understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and allure, but the tone of their voice repels.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
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.
A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was once and will surely be again.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
I would make any sacrifice but this; twenty times I can stake my life, even my honour, but my freedom I shall never sell. Why do I prize it so much? … What am I aiming at? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
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!
I do not love you (1831)
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.
I look upon the future with fear (1838)
I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)
The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.
A Hero of Our Time (1840)