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.
NIKOLAI GOGOLFor public opinion does not admit that lofty rapturous laughter is worthy to stand beside lofty lyrical emotion and that there isall the difference in the world between it and the antics of a clown at a fair.
More Nikolai Gogol Quotes
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What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.
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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.
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Whatever you may say, the body depends on the soul.
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Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.
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Gambling is the great leveller. All men are equal- at cards.
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There exists a kind of laughter which is worthy to be ranked with the higher lyric emotions and is infinitely different from the twitching of a mean merrymaker.
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The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.
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Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.
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Sank into the profound slumber which comes only to such fortunate folk as are troubled neither with mosquitoes nor fleas nor excessive activity of brain.
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It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.
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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.
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In the end dreams became his life, and his whole life thereafter took a strange turn: one might say he slept while waking and watched while asleep.
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There are passions that it is not for man to choose.
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I am who I am and that’s who I am.
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Don’t blame the mirror if your face is faulty.
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What is stronger in us – passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?
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The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.
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For contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.
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Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.
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Countless are, as the sand in the sea, the deep desires of men, and none resembles the other, and all of them, whether shameful, or great, in the beginning are obedient, but later become terrible masters over him.
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Everything resembles the truth, everything can happen to a man.
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I saw that I’d get nowhere on the straight path, and that to go crookedly was straighter.
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I shall laugh my bitter laugh.
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Perfect nonsense goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all
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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.
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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.
NIKOLAI GOGOL