Quote#Wisdom
Farewell, unwashed Russia
Quote byMikhail Lermontov · 1814–1841
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: —Published by Russky Arkhiv. Historical and literary collection (1890) Translation by Anatoly Liberman..
English (original)
Farewell, unwashed Russia, Land of slaves, land of masters, And you, blue uniforms, And you, people, devoted to them. Perhaps beyond the wall of the Caucasus, I will hide from your pashas, From their all-seeing eye, From their all-hearing ears.
— 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.
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.
Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.
O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth!
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.
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 …