Lermontov Best Quotes & Sayings

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

Loneliness

It's Hell for us to draw the fetters
Of life in alienation, stiff.
All people prefer to share gladness,
And nobody - to share grief.

As a king of air, I'm lone here,
The pain lives in my heart, so grim,
And I can see that, to the fear
Of fate, years pass me by like dreams;

And comes again with, touched by gold,
The same dream, gloomy one and old.
I see a coffin, black and sole,
It waits: why to detain the world?

There will be not a sad reflection,
There will be (I am betting on)
Much more gaily celebration
When I am dead, than - born. — Mikhail Lermontov

Can it be, thought I, that my sole mission on earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Ever since I began to live and act, fate has somehow associated me with the last act of other people's tragedies, as if without me no one could either die or give way to despair! I have been the inevitable character who comes in at the final act, involuntarily playing the detestable role of the hangman or the traitor. What has been fate's object in all this? Has it destined me to be the author of middle-class tragedies and family romances
or a purveyor of tales for, say, the Reader's Library? Who knows? Are there not many who begin life by aspiring to end it like Alexander the Great, or Lord Byron, and yet remain petty civil servants all their lives? — Mikhail Lermontov

I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectatorOf my triumph or my doom ... — Mikhail Lermontov

My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason. — Mikhail Lermontov

Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing. — Mikhail Lermontov

What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet. — Mikhail Lermontov

Do you know, Princess," said I with a shade of annoyance, "that one should never spurn a repentant sinner, for out of sheer desperation he may become twice as sinful ... — Mikhail Lermontov

Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity - perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. — Mikhail Lermontov

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. — Mikhail Lermontov

I felt somehow happy to be so high above the world - a childish feeling, I grant, but we can't help becoming children as we leave social conventions behind and come nearer to nature. All life's experience is shed from us and the soul becomes anew what it once was and will surely be again — Mikhail Lermontov

He turned away and offered his hand in parting. She didn't take it or say anything. But from where I was behind the door I could see her face through the crack. I pitied her to see how deathly pale that sweet little face had gone. Hearing no answer, Pechorin took a few steps towards the door. He was trembling, and I might say I think he was fit to do what he'd threatened as a joke. That's the sort of man he was, there was no knowing him. — Mikhail Lermontov

We almost always forgive those we understand. — Mikhail Lermontov

No good ever becomes of a man who forgets an old friend — Mikhail Lermontov

I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer. — Mikhail Lermontov

We practically always excuse things when we understand them — Mikhail Lermontov

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

Disenchantment, like any other fashion, having started off among the elite had now been passed down to finish its days among the lower orders. — Mikhail Lermontov

On a Bare Hill's Top...

On a bare hill's top, in the North, wild and cold,
A lone pine-tree somewhere stands;
She dozes, swaying, all covered by snow
With a mantel from feet to a head.

She sees in her dreams: in a faraway desert,
In lands where the sun enters skies,
Alone and sad, on a rock's sunburnt lather,
A beautiful palm-tree abides. — Mikhail Lermontov

We survive on novelty, so much less demanding than commitment. — Mikhail Lermontov

Can it be that my single purpose on this earth is to destroy the hopes of others? Since I have been living and breathing, fate has somehow always led me into the dramatic climaxes of others' lives, as if without me no one would be able to die, or to come to despair! I have been the necessary character of the fifth act; I have played the sorry role of executioner or traitor involuntarily. — Mikhail Lermontov

He has studied all the live strings of the human heart in the same way as one studies the veins of a dead body. — Mikhail Lermontov

I have observed that there always exists some strange relationship between the appearance of a man and his soul, as if with the loss of a limb, the soul lost one of its senses. — Mikhail Lermontov

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. — Mikhail Lermontov

In the first place, [his eyes] never laughed when he laughed. Have you ever noticed this peculiarity some people have? It is either the sign of an evil nature or of a profound and lasting sorrow. — Mikhail Lermontov

You too are an exile, I thought. You morn for the broad open steppes where you have room to spread your icy wings. Here you feel stifled and constricted, like an eagle that cries and beats against the bars of its iron cage. — Mikhail Lermontov

He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace — Mikhail Lermontov

I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one's guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes - that's what I call life. — Mikhail Lermontov

I have an unfortunate character; whether it is my upbringing that made me like that or God who created me so, I do not know. I know only that if I cause unhappiness to others, I myself am no less happy. I realize this is poor consolation for them - but the fact remains that it is so. In my early youth, after leaving the guardianship of my parents, I plunged into all the pleasures money could buy, and naturally these pleasures grew distasteful to me. Then I went into high society, but soon enough grew tired of it; I fell in love with beautiful society women and was loved by them, but their love only aggravated my imagination and vanity while my heart remained desolate ... I began to read and to study, but wearied of learning, too; I saw that neither fame nor happiness depended on it in the slightest, for the happiest people were the ignorant, and fame was a matter of luck, to achieve which you only had to be shrewd ... — Mikhail Lermontov

True, we might never have arrived, but the fact is we did. If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worth worrying about so much. — Mikhail Lermontov