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Mikhail Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov Books

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“...منذ نظم الشعراء شعراً..ومنذ أن قرأت النساء هذا الشعر ( ويجب أن نشكر لهن ذلك أعمق الشكر) سُميت النساء ملائكة، وبلغت هذه التسمية من التكرار أنهن من بساطة قلوبهن صدقنها، ناسيات أن هؤلاء الشعراء أنفسهم يمكن أن يضعوا نيرون (الإمبراطور المجنون الذي أحرق روما) في مصاف أنصاف الآلهة، في سبيل مال يحصلون عليه.”

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Book:A Hero of Our Time
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“I've an insatiable craving inside me that consumes everything and makes me regard the sufferings and joys of others only in their relationship to me, as food to sustain my spiritual powers. I am no longer capable of loosing my head in love, Ambition has been crushed in me by circumstances, but it has come out in another way, for ambition is nothing but a lust for power and my chief delight is to dominate those around me. To inspire in others love, devotion, fear - isn't that the first symptom and the supreme triumph of power? To cause another person suffering or joy, having no right to do so - isn't that the sweetest food of pride?”

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Book:A Hero of Our Time
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“I'm not certain whether I now believe in predestination or not, but that night I firmly believed in it. The proof had been striking, and regardless of the fact that I had ridiculed our forebears and their complacent astrology, I found myself thinking as they did--but I caught myself in time on this dangerous road, and having made it a rule never to reject anything categorically and never to believe in anything blindly, I cast metaphysics aside and began to watch the ground under my feet.”

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Book:A Hero of Our Time
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“I'm not certain whether I now believe in predestination or not, but that night I firmly believed in it. The proof had been striking, and regardless of the fact that I had ridiculed our forebears and their complacent astrology, I found myself thinking as they did--but I caught myself in time on this dangerous road, and having made it a rule never to reject anything categorically and never to believe in anything blindly, I cast metaphysics aside and began to watch the ground under my feet. Such caution was timely, for I nearly stumbled over something thick and soft but apparently dead.”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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“I must have had some high object in life, for I feel unbounded strength within me. But I never discovered it and was carried away by the allurements of empty, un-rewarding passions. I was tempered in their flames and came out cold and hard as steel, but I'd lost forever that fire of noble endeavour, that finest flower of life. How many time since then have I been an axe in the hands of fate? Like an engine of execution, I've descended on the heads of the condemned, often without malice, but always without pity. My love has brought no one happiness, for I've never sacrificed a thing for those I've loved. I've loved for myself, for my own pleasure, I've only tried to satisfy a strange inner need. I've fed on their feelings, love, joys and sufferings, and always wanted more. I'm like a starving man who falls asleep exhausted and sees rich food and sparkling wines before him. He rapturously falls on these phantom gifts of the imagination and feels better, but the moment he wakes up his dream disappears and he's left more hungry and desperate than before.”

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Book:A Hero of Our Time
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“No, I'm not Byron, it's my role To be an undiscovered wonder, Like him, a persecuted wand'rer, But furnished with a Russian soul. I started sooner, sooner ending, My mind will never reach so high; Within my soul, beyond the mending, My shattered aspirations lie: Dark ocean answer me, can any Plumb all your depth with skillful trawl? Who will explain me to the many? I... perhaps God? No one at all?”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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“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.”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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“I was lying, but I wanted to rouse him. I have an inborn urge to contradict; my whole life has been a mere chain of sad and futile opposition to the dictates of either heart or reason. The presence of an enthusiast makes me as cold as a midwinter's day, and, I believe, frequent association with a listless phlegmatic would make me an impassioned dreamer.”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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“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.”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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“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.”

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Author:Mikhail Lermontov
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