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Politics7 quotes
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. — Vladimir Putin · 2005So long as the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below. — Czar Alexander II of Russia · 1856Anarchism, then, really, stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraints of government. — Emma Goldman · 1910All 7 quotes →Soviet Union6 quotes
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you. — Nikita Khrushchev · 1956I decided it is better to scream. This pitiful sound, which sometimes, goodness knows how, reaches into the remotest prison cell, is a concentrated expression of the last vestige of human dignity. It is a man's way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died. By his screams he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help and calling for resistance. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity. — Nadezhda Mandelstam · 1970The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. — Vladimir Putin · 2005The astonishing thing is not that so many of us went to concentration camps or died there, but that some us survived. Caution did not help. Only chance could save you. — Nadezhda Mandelstam · 1972The guilt of Stalin and his immediate entourage before the Party and the people for the mass repressions and lawlessness they committed is enormous and unforgivable. — Mikhail Gorbachev · 1987If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle. — Nikita Khrushchev · 1955Political theory5 quotes
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970Imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917So long as the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below. — Czar Alexander II of Russia · 1856Cold War4 quotes
Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you. — Nikita Khrushchev · 1956The guilt of Stalin and his immediate entourage before the Party and the people for the mass repressions and lawlessness they committed is enormous and unforgivable. — Mikhail Gorbachev · 1987If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle. — Nikita Khrushchev · 1955Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order. — Mikhail Gorbachev · 1990Evil3 quotes
It was as though in those last minutes he was summing up the lesson that this long course in human wickedness had taught us—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil. — Hannah Arendt · 1963The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself. What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. — Hannah Arendt · 1963The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good. — Hannah Arendt · 1975Hopelessness and despair3 quotes
The worst have lost their fear and the best have lost their hope. — Hannah Arendt · 1951In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1865Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm. — Yevgeny Baratynsky · 1823Revolution3 quotes
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970There can be only one permanent revolution-a moral one. — Leo Tolstoy · 1900Better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below. — Czar Alexander II of Russia · 1856Adaptability2 quotes
Man is a creature that can get used to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1860There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him. — Leo Tolstoy · 1877Art2 quotes
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. — Leo Tolstoy · 1897Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. — Vladimir NabokovBeauty2 quotes
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880Beauty will save the world. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1869Death2 quotes
Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. — Vladimir Nabokov · 1962Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time. — Ivan Turgenev · 1860Existence of God2 quotes
But what will become of men then? I asked him, without God and immortal life? — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880Between "God exists" and "There is no God" lies a whole enormous field which a true sage has great difficulty in crossing. But a Russian knows only one of these two extremes and the middle between them doesn't interest him, which is why he knows nothing or very little... A good man's indifference is as good as any religion. — Anton Chekhov · 1921Freedom2 quotes
You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power-he's free again. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1968So long as the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State. — Vladimir Lenin · 1917God2 quotes
But what will become of men then? I asked him, without God and immortal life? — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880Between "God exists" and "There is no God" lies a whole enormous field which a true sage has great difficulty in crossing. But a Russian knows only one of these two extremes and the middle between them doesn't interest him, which is why he knows nothing or very little... A good man's indifference is as good as any religion. — Anton Chekhov · 1921Happiness2 quotes
The eternal error men make in imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. — Leo Tolstoy · 1877A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor-such is my idea of happiness. — Leo Tolstoy · 1859History2 quotes
The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words-that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869In historical events great men-so called-are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869Hope2 quotes
The worst have lost their fear and the best have lost their hope. — Hannah Arendt · 1951Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm. — Yevgeny Baratynsky · 1823Human body2 quotes
Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. — Vladimir NabokovHuman nature2 quotes
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made. — Immanuel Kant · 1784There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him. — Leo Tolstoy · 1877International politics2 quotes
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. — Vladimir Putin · 2005Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order. — Mikhail Gorbachev · 1990Love2 quotes
By loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving them. — Leo Tolstoy · 1869A woman's love for us increases
The less we love her, sooth to say-
She stoops, she falls, her struggling ceases;
Caught fast, she cannot get away. — Alexander Pushkin · 1837Man as social animal2 quotes
There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him. — Leo Tolstoy · 1877Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle... Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle. — Peter Kropotkin · 1902Morality2 quotes
There can be only one permanent revolution-a moral one. — Leo Tolstoy · 1900Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me. — Immanuel Kant · 1788Oppression2 quotes
Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think. — Hannah Arendt · 1970You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power-he's free again. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1968Power2 quotes
Power is given only to him who dares to stoop and take it... One must have the courage to dare. — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Progress2 quotes
Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought. — Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1923Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. — Leo Tolstoy · 1900Purpose of art2 quotes
Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen. — Leo Tolstoy · 1897Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. — Leo Tolstoy · 1897Reason2 quotes
When reason fails, the devil helps! — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own reason! This is the motto of the Enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant · 1784Russia2 quotes
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. — Vladimir Putin · 2005It is the Russians' joy to drink; we cannot do without it. — Vladimir the Great · 1113The afterlife2 quotes
We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast. But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? — Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. — Anton Chekhov · 1898