Mikhail Lermontov Quotations

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 strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.

Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.

Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.

I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.

It is sad to see a young man's fondest hopes and dreams shattered when the rose-colured veil is plucked away and he sees the actions and feelings of men for what they are. But he still has the hope of replacing his old illusions with others, just as fleeting, but also just as sweet.

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

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.

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

In people's eyes I readPages of malice and sin.