Ivanov Quotes & Sayings

Because of its huge territory, Russia must devote a great deal of attention to security. — Sergei Ivanov

Ivanov: I am a bad, pathetic and worthless individual. One needs to be pathetic, too, worn out and drained by drink, like Pasha, to be still fond of me and to respect me. My God, how I despise myself! I so deeply loathe my voice, my walk, my hands, these clothes, my thoughts. Well, isn't that funny, isn't that shocking? Less than a year ago I was healthy and strong, I was cheerful, tireless, passionate, I worked with these very hands, I could speak to move even Philistines to tears, I could cry when I saw grief, I became indignant when I encountered evil. I knew inspiration, I knew the charm and poetry of quiet nights when from dusk to dawn you sit at your desk or indulge you mind with dreams. I believed, I looked into the future as into the eyes of my own mother ... And now, my God, I am exhausted, I do not believe, I spend my days and nights in idleness. — Anton Chekhov

Ivanov: Gentlemen, you've again set up a drinking shop in my study ... I have asked each and every one of you a
thousand times not to do that ...
Look now, you've spilt vodka on a paper ... and there are crumbs ... and gherkins ...
It's disgusting! — Anton Chekhov

We believe the use of force against Iraq, especially with reference to previous resolutions of the UN Security Council, has no grounds, including legal grounds. — Igor Ivanov

Mrs. Ivanov's gentle face was pale and bewildered, her wrinkles falling in on themselves as though they'd given up trying to hold on to any expression other than sorrow. — Deborah Blake

We have put the Cold War behind us. We no longer count our divisions and our warheads. And I am Russia's first civilian defense minister in many centuries. We have become more pragmatic. — Sergei Ivanov

Ivanov: A naive man is a fool. But you women are clever enough to be naive so that it comes out in you as engaging and healthy and warm, and not so silly as it might seem. Only why do you all behave like this? While a man is healthy and strong and in good spirits, you pay him no attention, but as soon as he rolls down the slippery slope and starts complaining about his woes, you hang on his neck. — Anton Chekhov

Ivanov: No, my clever young thing, it's not a question of romance. I say as before God that I will endure everything - depression and mental illness and ruin and the loss of my wife and premature old age and loneliness - but I cannot tolerate, cannot endure being ridiculous in my own eyes. I'm dying of shame at the thought that I, a healthy, strong man, have turned into some sort of Hamlet or Manfred, some sort of 'superfluous man' ... devil knows precisely what!
There are pitiful people who are flattered by being called Hamlet or superfluous men, but for me it's a disgrace! It stirs up my pride, I'm overcome by shame and I suffer ... — Anton Chekhov

Ivanov had been a party member since 1902. Back then he had tried to write stories in the manner of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, or rather he had tried to plagiarize them without much success, which led him, after long reflection (a whole summer night), to the astute decision that he should write in the manner of Odoevsky and Lazhechnikov. Fifty percent Odoevsky and fifty percent Lazhecknikov. This went over well, in part because readers, their memories mostly faulty, had forgotten poor Odoevsky (1803-1869) and poor Lazhechnikov (1792-1869), who died the same year, and in part because literary criticism, as keen as ever, neither extrapolated nor made the connection nor noticed a thing. — Roberto Bolano

He gave me a hard smile before clapping on his helmet. It enclosed his entire head and featured a multifunction power-optic visor, holovid camera with continuous map-revise data stream, laser communication capability, and an omnifilter respirator. Like his soft-armored combat jumpsuit, it had an environmental system to keep him comfy. His belt held a Kagi sidearm, a monster commando knife in place of the usual Ivanov stunner, small flexcanteens of water, coffee and nutrigoo, and a bulb of trailblazer spray. — Julian May

Ivanov's breath smelled of vodka and sewers, sour and heavy, like something rotting, reminiscent of empty houses near swamps, nightfall at four in the afternoon, vapors rising from the sickly grass and fogging the dark windows. A horror film, thought Ansky. Where everything has come to a halt, and it comes to a halt because it knows it's lost. — Roberto Bolano

I don't approve of mixing ideologies," Ivanov continued. "There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community
which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible. — Arthur Koestler

Ivanov- "Up to now , all revolutions have been made by moralizing diletantes. They were always in good faith and perished because of their dilettantism. We for the first time are consequent ... "
"Yes," said Rubashov. "So consequent, that in the interests of a just distribution of land we deliberately let die of starvation about five million farmers and their families in one year. So consequent were we in the liberation of human beings from the shackles of industrial exploitation that we sent about ten million people to do forced labour in the Artic regions and the jungles of the East, under conditions similar to those of antique galley slaves. So consequent that, to settle a difference of opinion, we know only one argument: death, whether it is a matter of submarines, manure, or the Party line to be followed in Indo-China ... — Arthur Koestler

When it comes to culture, religion and mentality, most Russians identify with Europe. — Sergei Ivanov

On a winter night I hear the Easter bell:
I knock on graves and quicken the dead,
Until at last in a grave I see - myself.

(Winter Sonnets: XI) — Vyacheslav Ivanov

Ivanov: Once I worked hard and thought a lot but I never got tired; now I do nothing and think of nothing, but I'm tired in body and spirit. My conscience aches day and night, I feel deeply guilty but I don't understand where I am actually at fault. And add to that my wife's illness, my lack of money, the constant bickering, gossip, unnecessary conversations, that stupid Borkin ... My home has become loathsome to me and I find living there worse than torture. — Anton Chekhov

My double drags his coffin, humble slave,
I, at least, am real, though changed to flesh.
Far-off, I build me a church no hand can shape

("Winter Sonnets: III") — Vyacheslav Ivanov

God-fucking-damn but he was seriously good-looking. "Have you ever had the stuffed pancakes here? They're evil. I highly recommend them."
"Heh. The cop is recommending evil," I said. "Too funny."
To my surprise, Ivanov chuckled. "You've discovered my dark side. — Diana Rowland

It is painful to talk about it, but even with its 110,000 elite soldiers, the Soviet Union never managed to gain control over the entire Afghan territory. — Sergei Ivanov

This life of ours ... human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up
no more flower. — Anton Chekhov

The Baltic countries are sovereign nations. They have the right to decide which military and political bloc they want to be a part of. — Sergei Ivanov

Financial markets strive to be forward-looking, but not when it comes to underfollowed small cap stocks in obscure industries. Such stocks remain under the radar of most investors until they report huge acceleration in earnings growth. When a company that used to grow at 5 to 10% suddenly reports a 300% increase in earnings and a 100% increase in sales, it will grab the attention of many investors. — Ivaylo Ivanov

Russia sees itself as a country that is self-sufficient. — Sergei Ivanov

The resolution has made a real threat of war go away and opens the way for further work in the interests of a political- diplomatic settlement of the situation around Iraq. — Igor Ivanov

Ivanov: With a heavy head, with a slothful spirit, exhausted, overstretched, broken, without faith, without love, without a goal, I roam like a shadow among men and I don't know who I am, why I'm alive, what I want. And I now think that love is nonsense, that embraces are cloying, that there's no sense in work, that song and passionate speeches are vulgar and outmoded. And everywhere I take with me depression, chill boredom, dissatisfaction, revulsion from life ... I am destroyed, irretrievably! — Anton Chekhov

Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of being no good. Also fear of being overlooked. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear that one's efforts and striving will come to nothing. Fear of the step that leaves no trace. Fear of the forces of chance and nature that wipe away shallow prints. Fear of dining alone and unnoticed. Fear of going unrecognized. Fear of failure and making a spectacle of oneself. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear of forever dwelling in the hell of bad writers. — Roberto Bolano

Resolution 1441 does not give anyone the right to an automatic use of force. Russia believes that the Iraqi problem should be regulated by the Security Council, which carries the main responsibility for ensuring international security. — Igor Ivanov

If you want women to love you, then don't be cross in front of them and don't go all pompous ... -Anna Petrovna in Ivanov — Anton Chekhov

You say asshole; I say hole of the ass, but we say same thing, yes?" - Babushka Ivanov — Jessie Lane

I, Nikolai Ivanov, renounce my father, an ex-priest, because for many years he deceived the people by telling them that God exists, and that is the reason I am severing all my relations with him.77 — Orlando Figes

Going back to the 1920s, when Stalin ordered the most famous animal breeder in Russia to do it, to make a new race of soldiers for him. His name was Ivanov, — Michael Crichton

Lvov: I need to have a candid talk with you, Nikolay Alekseyevich.
Ivanov: Doctor, if we're going to have a candid talk every day, I haven't the strength for it. — Anton Chekhov

Anna Petrovna: Kolya, my dearest, stay at home.
Ivanov: My love, my unhappy darling, I beg you, don't stop me going out in the evenings. It's cruel and unjust on my part, but let me commit that injustice. It's an agony for me at home. As soon as the sun disappears, my spirit begins to be weighed down by depression. What depression! Don't ask why. I myself don't know. I swear by God's truth I don't know. Here I'm in anguish, I go to the Lebedevs and there it's still worse; I return from there and here it's depression again, and so all night ... Simply despair! — Anton Chekhov

Ivanov: You only qualified last year, my dear friend, you're still young and confident, but I am thirty-five. I have the right to give you some advice. Don't marry a Jew or a psychopath or a bluestocking but choose yourself someone ordinary, someone a shade of grey, with no bright colour and no superfluous noises. In general, construct your whole life on a conventional pattern. The greyer, the more monotonous the background, the better. My dear fellow, don't do
battle against thousands all on your own, don't tilt against windmills, don't beat your head against walls ... And may
God preserve you from all kinds of rational farming, newfangled schools, fiery speeches ... Shut yourself in your shell and do your little God-given business ... It's snugger, healthier and more honest. — Anton Chekhov

Moscow has been helping the Northern Alliance because the Taliban was openly supported by Pakistan, .. until last week, Pakistani servicemen had taken part in war operations on the Taliban side. — Sergei Ivanov

Ivanov: And this whole romance of ours is commonplace and trite: he lost heart, and he lost his way. She came along, strong and brave in spirit, and gave him an helping hand. That's all very well and plausible in novels, but in life ...
Sasha: In life it's the same.
Ivanov: I see you have a fine understanding of life! — Anton Chekhov