Russian Orthodox Quotes & Sayings

Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control. — Tracy Chapman

In this way, the Church was a true reflection of the whole of Russian society. The KGB and the Russian people had penetrated each other to such an extent that they could not be separated. The culture of betrayal and suspicion and distrust that the KGB relied on had become part of the national culture, poisoning politics in the 1990s and beyond: decades of corruption, murder and sordid sex scandals. If it cannot purge itself, however, the Russian nation will never rid itself of the illness that has driven people to alcohol. Russians need to trust each other again. — Oliver Bullough

On December 13, the tsarina suggests to the tsar: "Anything but this responsible ministry about which everybody has gone crazy. Everything is getting quiet and better, but people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole years, the same thing: 'Russia loves to feel the whip.' That is their nature!" This orthodox Hessian, with a Windsor upbringing and a Byzantine crown on her head, not only "incarnates" the Russian soul, but also organically despises it. Their nature demands the whip - writes the Russian tsarina to the Russian tsar about the Russian people, just two months and a half before the monarchy tips over into the abyss. In — Leon Trotsky

Rhythmic motion has become the carrier and creator of almost every ecstatic mood of any significance in human life. — Curt Sachs

In truth, I think I do not make it easy for anyone at all. There is about me a reserve, a frostiness I cannot shed, something cold at the edges that baffles exchange. — Kay Langdale

A debilitating absence of government machinery was compounded by White failure in the realm of ideas. Red propaganda effectively stamped the Whites as military adventurists, lackeys of foreign powers, restorationists. The Whites mounted their own propaganda, military parades, and troop reviews blessed by Orthodox priests. Their red, white, and blue flags, the national colors of pre-1917 Russia, often had images of Orthodox saints; others had skulls and crossbones. The Whites copied the Bolshevik practice of the agitation trains. But their slogans - "Let us be one Russian people" - did not persuade. — Stephen Kotkin

I don't know if you can be a born-again virgin. — Judd Apatow

And so I, my love, am going to the very center of the earth. I am going to the point that is closest of all to Heaven. If my words are destined to fly all the way to Heaven, then it will happen there. And all my words will be about you. — Evgenij Vodolazkin

Easter celebrations are evidence of the increased benign influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional churches in our country on society. — Vladimir Putin

I've been writing a lot about a new form of Russian imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox imperialism. It's very little remarked that the cement, the political, ideological cement of the Russian regime now, communism having collapsed and imploded, is increasingly a confessional one. — Christopher Hitchens

There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for all the sins of men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so, that it is you who are guilty on behalf of all and for all. Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan's pride and murmuring against God.
The Brothers Karamazov
Book VI - The Russian Monk, Chapter 3 - Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zosima. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Well, we have got to understand, for example, Russia is an orthodox Christian nation. So is Ukraine. That happened in 988 in Crimea, a place called Kievan Rus, which was the Russia around Kiev at that time. It's 1,000 years ago, but, to a Russian, it's yesterday. — Marvin Kalb

The crime rates would go right down, I think, if Americans stopped saying: 'Have a nice day,' to one another. At least it would stop me from contemplating violence; when people in shops & so on order me to have a nice day in this authoritarian way, I want to kill, kill, kill. When I mutter 'sod off' under my breath, they think it is a Russian Orthodox benediction. — Susannah Clapp

Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back. — Michael Crichton

There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

The way that Russian Orthodox services work generally, and certainly the way that this worked, is that it goes on for hours and hours, and people wander in and wander out, and people talk the whole way through. One of the American women said to the other, "This is so beautiful. I can actually imagine maybe even becoming Orthodox." She went on and on, and finally a Russian seated just in front of her turned and said, "You are not member of church because it is beautiful; you are member of church because it is the single truth of God!" — Andrew Solomon

Was he serious? Why would she be meant for a guy from Hell? If there was such a thing as destiny, she was supposed to find a quiet, smart guy, one who wasn't over six feet tall, with midnight hair and a face she couldn't stop staring at. He'd be Russian Orthodox. Or Episcopalian. He might even be Jewish. But he wouldn't be from Hell. — Trinity Faegen

In the Russian Orthodox Church there is the concept of the Holy Fool. It means someone who is a fool to the ways of the world, but wise to the ways of God. I think that Ted, from the moment he saw the baby, knew that he could not possibly be the father ... Perhaps he saw in that moment that if he so much as questioned the baby's fatherhood, it would mean humiliation for the child and might jeopardize his entire future ... Perhaps he understood that he could not reasonably expect an independent and energetic spirit like Winnie to find him sexually exciting and fulfilling.
... And so he decided upon the most unexpected, and yet the simplest course of all. He chose to be such a Fool that he couldn't see the obvious. — Jennifer Worth

Indeed, the KGB's nearly total control of the Russian Orthodox Church, both at home and abroad, is one of the most sordid and little known chapters in the history of our organization. — Oleg Kalugin