Nikolaj Vasiljevič Gogol citáty

„Svini vleze štěstí samo do rypáku.“

„Smích je velká věc. Ničeho se lidé nebojí tolik, jako smíchu.“

„Proboha, radujte se více! Je to jediný a nejspolehlivější lék na všechny nemoci.“

„Pane Bože! Tak jest na světě dost všelijakého neřádstva, a ty jsi ještě stvořil ženu.“

„Na světě je možno všechno dokázat, jen jedno nelze - usmířit dvě dámy.“

„Cesta života jest široká, ale mnozí jí neznají a kráčejí cestou smrti.“

„Vezmi do ruky sekeru nebo pilu, to ti pomůže víc než všechny lázně a procházky před spaním.“

„Na zrcadlo se zlobí ten, kdo má křivou hubu.“

„A kdoví, třebas všichni uznají, že podle týchž zákonů, které způsobují, že hrdý a silný člověk je nicotný a slabý v neštěstí, ale slabý vzrůstá jako obr utrpením, že podle týchž zákonů člověk, který často pláče upřímnými, hlubokými slzami, směje se nejvíc ze všech na celém světě.“

„Na lačný žaludek je každý kufr těžký.“

„Člověk může být v lásce šťasten, jen když přestal milovat sebe sama.“

„Co se kurýrování týče, učinili jsme již příslušná opatření. Řídíme se heslem: blíž k přírodě - jen žádné drahé medicíny! Člověk je mechanismus docela prostý: když umře, umře bez nich - když se uzdraví, uzdraví se i bez nich.“

„Je pochybno, že by pánové takového druhu, totiž takoví, kteří nejsou ani tlustí, avšak nejsou ani tencí, byli schopni lásky.“

„Čím víc se bourá, tím víc je patrna horlivost městské správy.“

„Což kladné a záporné nemůže sloužit k jednomu a témuž cíli?“

„To, co hledá srdce, je zase jen srdce v druhém.“

“Of course, Alexander the Great was a hero, but why smash the chairs?”

“The sergeant's widow told you a lie when she said I flogged her. I never flogged her. She flogged herself.”

“[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!”

“Oh troika, winged troika, tell me who invented you? Surely, nowhere but among a nimble nation could you have been born in a country which has taken itself in earnest and has evenly spread far and wide over half of the globe, so that once you start counting the milestones you may count on till a speckled haze dances before your eyes… Rus, are you not similar in your headlong motion to one of those nimble troikas that none can overtake? The flying road turns into smoke under you, bridges thunder and pass, all fall back and is left behind!… And what does this awesome motion mean? What is the passing strange steeds! Has the whirlwind a home in your manes?… Rus, whither are you speeding to? Answer me. No answer. The middle bell trills out in a dream its liquid soliloquy; the roaring air is torn to pieces and becomes wind; all things on earth fly by and other nations and states gaze askance as they step aside and give her the right of way.”

“As it is so strangely ordained in this world, what is amusing will turn into being gloomy, if you stand too long before it, and then God knows what ideas may not stray into the mind”

“Rus! Rus! I see you, from my lovely enchanted remoteness I see you”

“Why do I constantly hear the echo of your mournful song as it is carried from the sea through your entire expanse?… And since you are without end yourself, is it not within you that a boundless thought will be born?”

“I tell everyone very plainly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? Why, greyhound puppies. That's a totally different matter.”

“Dogs are clever fellows; they know all about politics […]”

“The more destruction there is everywhere, the more it shows the activity of town authorities.”

“There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something.”

“Marchember 86. Between day and night.”

“What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourselves!”

“Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika?”

“When the priest went in, he stopped short at the sight of this defamation of God's holy place, and dared not serve the requiem on such a spot. And so the church was left forever, with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, was overgrown with forest trees, roots, rough grass and wild thorns, and no one can now find the way to it.”

“I am very fond of the modest manner of life of those solitary owners of remote villages, who in Little Russia are commonly called "old-fashioned," who are like tumbledown picturesque little houses, delightful in their simplicity and complete unlikeness to the new smooth buildings whose walls have not yet been discolored by the rain, whose roofs are not yet covered with green lichen, and whose porch does not display its bricks through the peeling stucco.”

“The year 2000: April 43rd.—To-day is a day of splendid triumph. Spain has a king; he has been found, and I am he.”

“And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.”

“Russia! Russia! I see you now, from my wondrous, beautiful past I behold you! How wretched, dispersed, and uncomfortable everything is about you…”

“And ruined is the Cossack! He is lost for all the chivalry of the Cossacks! He will see Zaporozhye no more; nor his father's farms, nor the church of God. Ukraine will see no more the bravest of the sons who undertook to defend her. Old Taras will tear the gray hair from his head and curse the day and hour when he begot such a son to shame him.”

“The gentleman lolling back in the chaise was neither dashingly handsome nor yet unbearably ugly, neither too stout nor yet too thin; it could not be claimed he was old but he was no stripling, either. His arrival in the town created no stir and was not marked by anything out of the ordinary.”

“there is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word”

“No date. The day had no date.”

“To tell the truth, I often felt uneasy when I thought of the excessive brittleness and fragility of the moon. The moon is generally repaired in Hamburg, and very imperfectly. It is done by a lame cooper, an obvious blockhead who has no idea how to do it. He took waxed thread and olive-oil—hence that pungent smell over all the earth which compels people to hold their noses. And this makes the moon so fragile that no men can live on it, but only noses. Therefore we cannot see our noses, because they are on the moon.”

“What a dreary world we live in, gentlemen.”

“However, nothing turned out as Tchitchikoff had intended.”

“Why are you being so stingy?", Sobakevich demanded. "It's cheap at the price. A rogue would cheat you, sell you some worthless rubbish instead of souls, but mine are as juicy as ripe nuts, all picked—they are all either craftsmen or sturdy peasants.”

“All the world knows that France sneezes when England takes a pinch of snuff.”

“In the course of reading he became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading was over he uttered in a voice full of sorrow: "Goodness, how sad is our Russia!"”