Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Lermontov
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontovwas a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of the Caucasus", the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also through his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth15 October 1814
CountryRussian Federation
Passions are merely ideas in their initial stage.
For what did the creator prepare me,Why did he so terribly contradictThe hopes of my youth?...
Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others.
I was modest--they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil--nobody caressed me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy--other children were merry and talkative. I felt myself superior to them--but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world--none understood me: and I learned to hate.
My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
I love enemies, though not in the Christian way. They amuse me, excite my blood. Being always on one’s guard, catching every glance, the significance of every word, guessing at intentions, frustrating their plots, pretending to be tricked, and suddenly, with a shove, upturning the whole enormous and arduously built edifice of their cunning and schemes—that’s what I call life.
One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.
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.
Out of life's storm I carried only a few ideas - and not one feeling.
Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.
Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.
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.
We practically always excuse things when we understand them
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.