Mikhail Lermontov quotes

Mikhail Lermontov was a Russian Romantic writer, poet, and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus." His works are noted for their deep psychological insight and exploration of themes like fate, freedom, and isolation. He profoundly influenced Russian literature and is celebrated as one of Russia’s greatest literary figures. Here are 36 of his quotes:

Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.

Mikhail Lermontov

Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

Mikhail Lermontov

A strange thing, the human heart in general, and woman's heart in particular.

Mikhail Lermontov

Women love only those whom they do not know!

Mikhail Lermontov

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

The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.

Mikhail Lermontov

I was born, so that the whole world could be a spectator Of my triumph or my doom...

Mikhail Lermontov

In people's eyes I read Pages of malice and sin.

Mikhail Lermontov

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.

Mikhail Lermontov

Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.

Mikhail Lermontov

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

Mikhail Lermontov

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 once and will surely be again.

Mikhail Lermontov

In simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.

Mikhail Lermontov

O vanity! you are the lever by means of which Archimedes wished to lift the earth!

Mikhail Lermontov

And I, as I lived, in an alien land Will die a slave and an orphan.

Mikhail Lermontov

What is this eternity to me without you? What is the infinity of my domains? Empty ringing words, A spacious temple - without a divinity!

Mikhail Lermontov

For what did the creator prepare me, Why did he so terribly contradict The hopes of my youth?...

Mikhail Lermontov

You men do not understand the delights of a glance, of a pressure of the hand... but as for me, I swear to you that, when I listen to your voice, I feel such a deep, strange bliss that the most passionate kisses could not take its place.

Mikhail Lermontov

What good are the passions? For sooner or later their sweet sickness ends when reason speaks up; And life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard is stupid and empty - a joke.

Mikhail Lermontov

I do not love you; the former dream Of passions and torments has passed by; But your image in my soul Is still alive, although it is powerless; Although I abandon myself to other dreams, I still cannot forget it; So an abandoned temple is still a temple, A dethroned idol - still a god!

Mikhail Lermontov

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

I was involuntarily struck by the aptitude which the Russian displays for accommodating himself to the customs of the people in whose midst he happens to be living. I know not whether this mental quality is deserving of censure or commendation, but it proves the incredible pliancy of his mind and the presence of that clear common sense which pardons evil wherever it sees that evil is inevitable or impossible of annihilation.

Mikhail Lermontov