Quote#Nature
To the earth I gave the earthly tribute
Quote byMikhail Lermontov · 1814–1841
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: "I look upon the future with fear..." (1838).
English (original)
To the earth I gave the earthly tribute Of love, hopes, good and evil; I am ready to begin another life, I am silent and wait: the time has come; I shall leave no brother in this world, And dark and cold embrace My tired soul; Like a premature fruit, deprived of sap, It withered in the storms of fate Under the burning sun of existence.
— Mikhail Lermontov
More from Mikhail Lermontov
Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.
Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.
I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.
I would make any sacrifice but this; twenty times I can stake my life, even my honour, but my freedom I shall never sell. Why do I prize it so much? … What am I aiming at? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth!
A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire from the conventions of society and draw close to nature, we involuntarily become children: each attribute acquired by experience falls away from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was …