Slavic Quotes & Sayings

According to the science writer Philip Ball, when it was pointed out to musicologist Deryck Cooke
that Slavic and much Spanish music use minor keys for happy music, he claimed that their lives
were so hard that they didn't really know what happiness was anyway. — David Byrne

She decided that day to study Russian, the language of violence, terror, and absurdity. She knew she would never be bored. — Natalie Standiford

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets. — Tom Robbins

This is an exception of history, Romania. These are a group of Romans that more than 2000 years ago remained here. They have been contaminated from many different cultures, but the basic language is still the Vulgar Latin that was probably spoken 2000 years ago in Rome, with some integration from the Turkish and Slavic languages. The structure is Latin and they still use some expressions that we use in our dialect in Rome. This was impressive for me and helped me a lot to stay here. — Anonymous

The idea of Slavic unity, is first of all a Russo-Polish unity — Nikolai A. Berdyaev

My mother always called me an ugly weed, so I never was aware of anything until I was older. Plain girls should have someone telling them they are beautiful. Sometimes this works miracles. — Hedy Lamarr

When Paul announced himself in a rather formal way to the secretary, he said simply, "I am Watzlawick." She suspected he was a new psychiatric patient showing up for an appointment at the wrong time, and she interpreted his introduction as, "I am not Slavic. — Paul Watzlawick

There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power (as "the powerful," "the masters," "the commanders") or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as "the rich," "the possessors" (this is the meaning of 'Arya,' and of corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic). — Friedrich Nietzsche

When you could get angry with someone and separate yourself from them, don't do that. If you have people who are difficult to deal with, be neither attracted nor repulsed. Go a step higher. — Frederick Lenz

No matter how fleeting
Your smile is,
Your smile is the very beginning
Of your wisdom-light. — Sri Chinmoy

Let all Americans sit down and read this great document. Since the Constitution's ratification, it has been the framework for our great nation. — Bob Latta

I've always played that edge of fact and fiction. I used to be a filmmaker, and certainly in film that's a line that filmmakers cross more readily and more easily than novelists. — Ruth Ozeki

learned to read and write in the Slavic alphabet from a single sheet. Then, I proceeded to make up my own dictionary using a small notebook with every page a different letter. An added impediment was the difference between these two Slavic languages. The writing presented also slight differences, also the orthography. All this added to the difficulties and the confusion, at first. The new, Soviet administration never thought of offering language classes for the new citizens. — Pearl Fichman

Kasha is the hardy starch of a Slavic winter - buckwheat, in fact - but when cooked properly, it gets a nutty, deep-brown crust. — Bill Buford

My father, a Russian translator, wanted to distinguish me by calling me Misha, the Russian diminutive of his name, Michael. My name and work as a writer specialising in the Balkans has created a myth that I have Slavic connections, but actually I am British. — Misha Glenny

China is constantly reinventing itself and so is the United States. — Patrick Mendis

Dr Jack Cohen Podiatrist is an orthopedic specialist with extensive experience in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries of human skeleton system. The narrow field of action for Jack Cohen DPM is surgery of knee, arthroscopic surgery and sports medicine, reconstructive surgery of the lower extremities, installation of artificial hip and knee joints. Immediate area of Dr Jack Cohen DPM activity is arthroscopic reconstruction of the ligaments of the knee joint, surgery cartilage damage of large joints, revision of embedded artificial joints. As a subspecialist children's orthopedics, Dr Jack Cohen Podiatrist deals with the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases and injuries of the locomotors system in children and adolescents. — Jack Cohen

Our town was christened Buyan, after the legend of a Slavic island that appeared, and disappeared, at will. That would later seem an eerie, and disconcerting, premonition. — A.B. Shepherd

Research on child abuse suggests that religious beliefs can foster, encourage, and justify the abuse of children. When contempt for sex underlies teachings, this creates a breeding ground for abuse. — Mary Garden

I don't really know what 'American' is. I know what Ukrainian is. We're happy Slavic people. We're not Dostoyevsky Slavic people. There's this sense of 'pick it up, get your hands dirty, make the best of it, celebrate.' — Nina Arianda

Everyone wants to be excited by something magical and wondrous - to be reminded of how they once saw the world ... — John Geddes

When I was 14, I thought I looked terrible. I wore these typical Slavic shoes with metal bottoms so you could always hear me coming and this really ugly princess skirt and blouse with the top button closed. I had a boy haircut, a baby face covered with pimples, and a really big nose. — Marina Abramovic

I looked up 'standard' in the dictionary. There are eleven different definitions. — Dave Winer

There weren't really any new immigrants in Miller's Valley at all. You could tell by their last names that people who lived in the area were originally from Germany or Poland or some of the Slavic countries, but they'd been Americans long enough to have flat vowels and made-up minds. When I got older I realized that the majority of people in Miller's Valley were the most discontented kind of Americans, working people whose situations hadn't risen or fallen over generations, but who still carried a little bit of those streets-paved-with-gold illusions and so were always annoyed that the streets were paved with tar. If they were paved at all. — Anna Quindlen

My dad's side of the family had lots of artists and musicians. There's an emotional, quite sentimental quality to Slavic culture. It's very open, it loves art, it loves music, it loves literature. It's very warm, it's very up, it's very down. I would celebrate that. — Nick Clegg

For the benefit of your research people, I would like to mention (so as to avoid any duplication of labor): that the planet is very like Mars; that at least seventeen states have Pinedales; that the end of the top paragraph Galley 3 is an allusion to the famous "canals" (or, more correctly, "channels") of Schiaparelli (and Percival Lowell); that I have thoroughly studied the habits of chinchillas; that Charrete is old French and should have one "t"; that Boke's source on Galley 9 is accurate; that "Lancelotik" is not a Celtic diminutive but a Slavic one; that "Betelgeuze" is correctly spelled with a "z", not an "s" as some dictionaries have it; that the "Indigo" Knight is the result of some of my own research; that Sir Grummore, mentioned both in Le Morte Darthur ad in Amadis de Gaul, was a Scotsman; that L'Eau Grise is a scholarly pun; and that neither bludgeons nor blandishments will make me give up the word "hobnailnobbing". — Vladimir Nabokov

You are going in one second the length of a football field. That means you brain is receiving information from your body what the car is doing physically, bumping, balance, performance. — Emerson Fittipaldi

In Russia's case he identifies three strands: the Atlanticists, favouring alignment with the United States and the West (the bandwagoners); the imperialists, who favour the reassertion of Russia's power in opposition to the West (the balancers); and the neo-Slavophiles, sharing the sentiments of the imperialists but who stress the development of the country's Slavic identity.8 According to Zimmerman, the fundamental divide is indeed between Westernisers and Slavophiles, in a reprise of nineteenth-century debates, with the Slavophiles intent on counterbalancing American hegemony and finding an autonomous developmental path.9 — Richard Sakwa

The threat of a terrorist attack in Moscow is real enough - a constant beneath the surface. But another, more palpable form of intimidation stalks the city's streets. It targets those from the Caucasus - no longer perpetrators but victims - as well as anyone of non-Slavic descent. This spectre is Russian nationalism, furiously asserting itself. — Harding Luke

Thank you, I thought fervently. Thank you, Slavic forebears, ye heavily into consonants. Ye fans of high-scoring Scrabble tiles. Ye who boldly dropped z's where no z's had been dropped before. I appreciate it. — Kate Hattemer

I can teach them little things that may not be in any of the great books on writing. For instance, I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned that December is traditionally a bad month for writing. It is a month of Mondays. Mondays are not good writing days. One has had all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic Uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk. — Anne Lamott

I am a Slavic musician and it is deeply inside of me. — Miroslav Vitous

In the oldest chronicles of the times conserved in Hungary, reports will be found of Gypsy music, but never of any other, either Magyar, Slavic or Jewish. — Franz Liszt

The Soviet Union came apart along ethnic lines. The most important factor in this breakup was the disinclination of Slavic Ukraine to continue under a regime dominated by Slavic Russia. Yugoslavia came apart also, beginning with a brutal clash between Serbia and Croatia, here again 'nations' with only the smallest differences in genealogy; with, indeed, practically a common language. Ethnic conflict does not require great differences; small will do. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I'm not a walking extra in a Chekhov play; I'm no Slavic gloom or Irish gloom. — Orson Welles

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice. — G.K. Chesterton

The autocracy was legitimized by its ever-expanding multi-faith, multi-ethnic empire, yet the later emperors regarded themselves as the leaders first of the Russian nation but then of the entire Slavic community. The more they embraced Russian nationalism, the more they excluded (and often persecuted) their huge non-Russian populations, — Simon Sebag Montefiore