“ أختفي وغاب ذلك المخلوق الذي لم يكن له من يحميه ،والذي لم يكن عزيزاً علي أحد ،ولا شيقاً بالنسبة لأحد .. Nikolai Gogol
“ [F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation... Nikolai Gogol
“ Why, then, make a show of the poverty of our life and our sad imperfection, unearthing people from the backwoods, from remote corners of the state? But what if this is in the writer's nature, and his… Nikolai Gogol
“ The parental eye shed no tears when the time for leave-taking came; a half-rouble in copper coins was given to the boy by way of pocket-money and for sweets, and what is more important, the following… Nikolai Gogol
“ For every man there are certain words that are as if closer and more intimate to him than any others. And often, unexpectedly, in some remote, forsaken backwater, some deserted desert, one meets a man… Nikolai Gogol
“ Every man who has lived in the world and mixed with his fellow men will have remarked something which has remained hidden from the eyes of others; Nikolai Gogol
“ Even a stone has its uses, and man who is the most intelligent of all creatures must be of some use, hasn't he? Nikolai Gogol
“ Well, so that's the prosecutor! He lived and lived, and then died! And they will say in the papers that he died to the regret of his staff and all mankind, a respected citizen, a rare father, a model… Nikolai Gogol
“ Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries. Nikolai Gogol
“ What grief is not taken away by time? What passion will survive an unequal battle with it? I knew a man in the bloom of his still youthful powers, filled with true nobility and virtue, I knew him when… Nikolai Gogol
“ The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every lette… Nikolai Gogol
“ But youth has a future. The closer he came to graduation, the more his heart beat. He said to himself: This is still not life, this is only the preparation for life. Nikolai Gogol
“ But nothing is permanent in this world. Joy in the second moment of its arrival is already less keen than in the first, is still fainter in the third, and finishes by coalescing with our normal mental… Nikolai Gogol
“ Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, mag… Nikolai Gogol
“ But nothing is lasting in this world. Even joy begins to fade after only one minute. Two minutes later, and it is weaker still, until finally it is swallowed up in our everyday, prosaic state of mind,… Nikolai Gogol
“ ...all this convinced him that he had come to one of those revolting havens where pathetic depravity makes its abode, born of tawdry education and the terrible populousness of the capital. One of thos… Nikolai Gogol
“ He was already beginning, as always happens at a respectable age, to take a firm stand for Raphael and the old masters––not because he was fully convinced of their lofty merit, but so as to shove them… Nikolai Gogol
