Leonid Quotes & Sayings

My father was convinced, I think rightly, that if he stayed in Russia, he would have trouble with Lenin. — Leonid Hurwicz

Don't laugh at the voice of the stars. They are far away, their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark. — Leonid Andreyev

Ah well, 'tis the way of the world
births and deaths, births and deaths. — Leonid Andreyev

The moon was so young, so strange, even as a young girl who is dreaming and is afraid to tell her dreams; and it was shining only for itself. — Leonid Andreyev

The endgame is an arena in which miraculous escapes are not uncommon. — Leonid Shamkovich

Death augments distance and dulls the memory. Death reconciles. — Leonid Andreyev

The girl was cinnamon colored in the way of Native America after it had been raped by Europe. — Walter Mosley

...but that very thought, that she might become his wife, had for some reason entered his head the very first time she sat in his study at a little round table, diligently taking down in shorthand the words he dictated in his muffled voice - and he had been purposely dry and sharp with her that day, so she would not feel the power she had already gained over him, but when, as he dictated to her, he imagined himself kneeling before her beneath the flickering light of a nearly spent candle and kissing her feet, with her unable to leave because she was his wife, and about to blow out the candle so they could plunge into the passionate, exquisite swim, then his voice became hoarse and he shut his eyes to blot out the sight of this little girl, as he purposely tried to picture her to help restrain his imagination, girl students being as untouchable as postulants... — Leonid Tsypkin

Soviet people are better off materially and richer spiritually. — Leonid Brezhnev

The proper timing of an attacking plan is a difficult matter which places great strain on a player's nerves. Mastery of this art is required for success in the international arena, but perfect mastery eludes even the very best chessplayers! — Leonid Shamkovich

I paint because this is what I love to do. I have been painting since I was a kid and my dream was to become a well known professional artist — Leonid Afremov

When a woman weeps, it is a man's shame. — Leonid Andreyev

I shall add that only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor from it. No matter what the attacker might possess, no matter what method of unleashing nuclear war he chooses, he will not attain his aims. Retribution will inevitably ensue. — Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Breznev was an old man and despite his own military experience in World War II, he on the other hand was not very close to the military. — Helmut Schmidt

It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war. — Leonid Brezhnev

We should not pour muck on ourselves. — Leonid I. Brezhnev

We Communists have to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. — Leonid Brezhnev

I wondered if I could just drop the role I carried like a mantle of a dethroned prince. — Walter Mosley

Of late, attempts have been made in the USA - at a high level and in a rather cynical form - to play the "Chinese card" against the USSR. This is a shortsighted and dangerous policy. — Leonid Brezhnev

What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet. — Leonid Andreyev

When the Soviet Union came to be run by a valetudinarian mafioso like Brezhnev, the thing itself had fallen into self-contempt. — Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev did not understand the enormous political importance of the decision to produce and afterwards deploy the SS-20s. — Helmut Schmidt

A real sacrifice involves a radical change in the character of a game which cannot be effected without foresight, fantasy, and the willingness to risk. — Leonid Shamkovich

Lack of proper endgame technique allows many players to escape from lost positions, even without any spectacular play on their part. — Leonid Shamkovich

I had the belief that many troubles you could observe on the European continent were due to politicians not understanding economic phenomena. Even if they had good intentions, they didn't have the skills to solve problems. — Leonid Hurwicz

I tried different techniques during my career, but I especially fell in love with painting with oil and pallette-knife. Every artwork is the result of long painting process; every canvas is born during the creative search; every painting is full of my inner world. — Leonid Afremov

Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends: The energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and the minerals treasure house of Central and Southern Africa. — Leonid Brezhnev

Man dies. Come from darkness, into darkness he returns, and is reabsorbed, without a trace left, into the illimitable void of time. — Leonid Andreyev

I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis. Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and all are unhappy
what is it if not madness? — Leonid Andreyev

Born, the Man assumes the name and image of humanity, and becomes in all things like unto other men who dwell upon the earth. Their hard lot becomes his, and his, in turn, becomes the lot of all who shall come after him. Drawn on inexorably by time, it is not given him to see the next rung on which his faltering foot shall fall. Bounded in knowledge, it is not given him to foretell what each succeeding hour, what each succeeding minute, shall have in store for him. In blind nescience, in an agony of foreboding, in a whirl of hopes and fears, he completes the cycle of an iron destiny. — Leonid Andreyev

I'm just a survivor from the train wreck of the modern world. — Walter Mosley

One sits the whole day at the desk and appetite is standing next to me. 'Away with you', I say. But Comrade Appetite does not budge from the spot. — Leonid I. Brezhnev

Life, my dear Mamselle, can't be reckoned up correctly without cooking the accounts a bit, and our mistake lies in this: that when we grapple with great things, we never take the human coefficient into consideration. All the confusion comes from that...Don't be upset by the coefficient, Mamselle. It contains all the savor and glamor of life. Otherwise every lout would just drink up life to the dregs, and then put a bullet into his brain...Because then his brain would ask for something beyond life...No matter what happens, keep on living, Mamselle. A living human being is, after all, Nature's most beautiful creation. — Leonid Leonov

There is no beast more cruel than man. — Leonid Andreyev

Only the footsteps of the blind are short, but their thoughts are long. — Leonid Andreyev

Brezhnev wasn't a minus for the history of our country, he was a huge plus, He laid a foundation for the country's economics and agriculture. — Leonid Brezhnev

I have assimilated Western thought and its clarity, but, in fact, I am solidly rooted in the passive Eastern nature and remain rebellious to any action. — Leonid Feodorov

Classical mechanics gave us a deterministic view of the world. Quantum mechanics, conversely, gives us a probabilistic view instead. According to Newton, if you know the cause af an event, you can predict the outcome. According to M.Born, you can only predict how likely that outcome will be. — Leonid V. Azaroff

Life seemed to him to be a narrow cage, and her iron bars were many and dense, and there was only one way out. — Leonid Andreyev

Men are always murderers, and their calmness and generosity is the calmness of a well-fed animal, that knows itself out of danger. — Leonid Andreyev

Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people. — Leonid Brezhnev

A game is defined by the players' strategy domains and payoff functions. — Leonid Hurwicz

All perishes, all decays, all is born again. — Leonid Andreyev

Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile. — Leonid Andreyev

Believe me, after the destruction of Chinese nuclear sites by our missiles, there won't be much time for the Americans to choose between the defense of their Chinese allies and peaceful co-existence with us. — Leonid Brezhnev

When I feel overwhelmed by misfortune, the greatest joy that the Lord can give me is to go to the altar, to put my forehead against it (as on the day of my ordination to the priesthood), and to feel the presence of the only reality. Not only does calm return, but my body seems to be annihilated; the only true life begins, the life of that which is intangible. — Leonid Feodorov

True art is alive and inspired by humanity. I believe that art helps us to be free from aggression and depression. — Leonid Afremov

Do you not see the hand of God, which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the mountains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory? — Leonid Andreyev

The papers are full of murders
strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled. — Leonid Andreyev

In Morocco, he was back in his element, a shark moving through deep and dangerous waters. But for thousands of years sharks have been bred to survive dark and dangerous waters. So too, Leonid Arkadin. — Eric Van Lustbader

The true messianism of the Russian Church is not what the Slavophiles have imagined, but it is the example of suffering. It is in this way that she shows that she is the continuation of Christ in this world. — Leonid Feodorov

My whole life has been based on two principles: the love of the Church to which I am united, and the love of my country, which I adore. If I do not care whether I am sentenced to ten years imprisonment or to be shot, it is not because I am a fanatic ... Since I joined the Catholic Church my sole object has been to reconcile my country to that Church which I believe to be the One True Church. — Leonid Feodorov

The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if you destroyed it today, it would rise up again the same as before. — Leonid Andreyev

There are two kinds of games in economics. One is the game where people use only legal moves. Then there is the true game, the one like real life, where the strategies and moves people make, some of them contain illegal gains. — Leonid Hurwicz

Legal behavior is not incompatible with rational, self-interested behavior. — Leonid Hurwicz

To succeed in life one needs two things
influence and a lucky star. — Leonid Andreyev

The highest peace is the peace between opposites. — Leonid Brezhnev

Our militant union with peoples which still have to carry on an armed struggle against the colonialists constitutes an important element of our line in international affairs. — Leonid Brezhnev

One of the poets says somewhere that animals are a different people. I killed them by the ten, by the hundred, thousand, not even knowing what they were called. I destroyed their houses, their secrets. And buried them. Buried them. Leonid — Svetlana Alexievich

There are as many kinds of love as there are flowers and bugs put together but men and women and their needs are all the same. — Walter Mosley

When a man has the rope about his neck, you don't ask him about his health! — Leonid Andreyev

Objectivity and presence of mind are essential in such positions where sacrificial temptations are not always resistable. — Leonid Shamkovich

We bow our heads in respect for those Soviet women who displayed exceptional courage in the severe time of war. Never before but during the days of the war the grandeur of spirit and the invincible will of our Soviet women, their selfless dedication, loyalty and affection to their Homeland, their boundless persistence in work and their heroism on the front manifested themselves with such strength. — Leonid Brezhnev

God will not forgive us if we fail. — Leonid I. Brezhnev

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not. — Leonid Andreyev

I was utterly convinced that an intellectual could never be anything but an intellectual, was simply not capable of being anything else, that his intellectuality would, sooner or later, erode his faith or erode whatever he'd masked it with ... For example, intellectuals like to dress themselves up as peasants ... but it never works. The intellectual's constitution is impervious to such things - it permits only one object of worship - oneself. Generally speaking, an intellectual in the contemporary version is an exceptionally resourceful and, essentially, pitiful being. — Leonid Borodin

Just because there are people who violate rules, behave illegally and so on, it does not mean that everybody is like that. On the contrary, if you watch certain judges, you observe that they honestly try to implement what they believe the Constitution says and just put it into effect. — Leonid Hurwicz

Bread without love is like grass without salt
the stomach may be filled, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. — Leonid Andreyev

It's a powerful instrument, dynamite
nothing like it for a convincing argument! — Leonid Andreyev

There is nothing more practical than a good theory. — Leonid Brezhnev

Who strikes man with love
God or the Devil? — Leonid Andreyev

As we educate a child
removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience
we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence
towards perfection. — Leonid Andreyev

When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country ... this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries. — Leonid Brezhnev

A need for enforcement implies the possibility of behavior that violates the rules of the game. The point is that if there were no possibility of violation, then you wouldn't need enforcement. — Leonid Hurwicz

A great chess player always has a very good memory. — Leonid Shamkovich

We are entirely for the idea that Europe shall be free from nuclear weapons, from medium-range weapons as well as tactical weapons. That would be a real zero option. — Leonid Brezhnev

The Nazis were seldom dumb and never funny. — Leonid Kinskey

In modern praxis lost positions are salvaged most often when the play is highly complicated with many sharp dynamic variations to be calculated. — Leonid Shamkovich

I knew there was a reason I didnt turn you into a banana slug."
Leonid'd eyes widened. "No banana slug! Please!"
"It was a compliement, silly. Forbidden is good! Sadie likes forbidden! — Rick Riordan

Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today. — Leonid I. Brezhnev

Every man must be made to realize that further retreat is impossible. He must realize with his mind and heart that this is a matter of life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the people of our country ... the Nazi troops must be stopped now, before it is too late. — Leonid Brezhnev

I want to be the apostle of self destruction. I want my book to affect man's reason, his emotions, his nerves, his whole animal nature. I should like my book to make people turn pale with horror as they read it, to affect them like a drug, like a terrifying dream, to drive them mad, to make them curse and hate me but still to read me and ... to kill themselves. — Leonid Andreyev

The loss of reason in war seems to me honorable, like the death of a sentry at his post. — Leonid Andreyev

Hitherto without being; hidden away in the womb of eternity; possessed neither of thought nor feeling; remote from the range of human ken
the Man bursts, in some unknown manner, the bars of non-existence, and announces with a cry the beginning of his brief life. In the night of non-existence there bursts forth also a little candle, lit by an unseen hand. Mark well its flame: for it is the life of that Man. — Leonid Andreyev

The rout of fascism, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, generated a mighty tide of socio-political changes which swept across the globe. — Leonid Brezhnev

I think the big tragedy of the Cuban Revolution was that it became dependent on the Soviet Union, and it became dependent on the Soviet Union under a very reactionary bureaucratic regime led by Leonid Brezhnev. — Tariq Ali

We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe. — Leonid Brezhnev

We Communists have got to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. But we are going to continue massive military programs ... (soon) we will be in a position to return to a much more aggressive foreign policy designed to gain the upper-hand ... — Leonid Brezhnev

When you talk about the economic process of a society, sometimes we separate it into two stories. One is about monetary variables. But then, we very often assume the underlying arrangement, the other variable, is 'perfect competition,' which means people do whatever they are supposed to do. — Leonid Hurwicz

Who is all-powerful in the world? Who is most dreadful in the world? The machine. Who is most fair, most wealthy, and all-wise? The machine. What is the earth? A machine. What is the sky? A machine. What is man? A machine. A machine. — Leonid Andreyev

The Russians love Brooke Shields because her eyebrows remind them of Leonid Brezhnev. — Robin Williams

As you know, I am not a writer but a Party functionary. But like every Communist I consider myself to have been mobilized by Party propaganda and deem it my duty to participate actively in the work of our press. — Leonid Brezhnev

Thousands, if not millions, of people had exchanged life for the negation of life simply so that someone like me could have the pleasure of riding in a taxi. And now thousands more were throwing away their lives in order to try and eliminate global suffering, and they didn't see the senselessness of that, though it screamed out from every page of history and from every street-corner; in the scream you could hear the universal lack of order and lack of satisfaction and all the other shortcomings which were in fact the very essence of life - remove them, do away with them, and what would be left? — Leonid Borodin

Kit [Carson Kitteridge] watched me for a few moments before saying, "That was some impressive killing you did. Naked too."
"I hope I didn't embarrass Office Palmer."
"She said that after all she heard about you she thought your johnson would be bigger."
"Tell her that the air conditioner was on. — Walter Mosley

Only the dead know the truth. — Leonid Andreyev

See thou, whatsoever be thy name
whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me! — Leonid Andreyev

That would be like me tellin' a gosling not to migrate down south his first mature season. You got to go. Got to. There's gonna be snakes and foxes, and in your case, [ ... ], there might even be men with guns. — Walter Mosley

The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win. — Leonid Brezhnev

Detente is a readiness to resolve differences and conflicts not by force, not by threats and sabre-rattling, but by peaceful means, at the conference table. — Leonid Brezhnev

HBO and I have a deal to at least try to make a television series from the Leonid McGill stories. We're going to start with the first novel, 'The Long Fall.' — Walter Mosley