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Russians Quotes

Browse 31 quotes about Russians.

Russians Quotes

“Christianity cannot be reduced to sentimental compassion, because it must be just. Compassionate Europeans need to realize that by taking Russians out of responsibility, they are actually doing them a disservice. Because the crime of the Russian state in Ukraine, not understood as a sin and not brought out of the soul through repentance, will inevitably lead to an even worse sin. To truly love the Russians is precisely to reveal to them the scale of their crime, to allow them to be horrified by what they have done, and to direct their souls to sincere repentance before God and men. Only after the collective Russian soul stumbles before the burden of its own responsibility and washes away tears of repentance before the victims, only then will it open the door to the future.”

LoveSoulSinChristianityCrimeRussiaRepentanceVictimsRussianRussians
Author:Мирослав Маринович
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“It seems likely the Russians never understood this inherent dichotomy in the American soul. They were genuinely irritated when the United States agreed to a world in which power ruled in 1944, then reneged and wanted some kind of parliamentary world democracy in 1945. This did seem double dealing, but it was hard for Russians to grasp the difficulties of the State Department, which, unlike the Soviet Foreign Office, could not wheel and deal with no regard to public consumption.”

WarPowerUnited StatesUnited NationsRussians
Book:This kind of peace
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“Vera's monkey brain was "racing." She wanted someone to talk to her and to get some of her words out, but Daddy and the Seal had now switched to Russian and their conversation was growing more somber, because that's what Russian did to you. Her teacher, the other Vera, had never once smiled, even when reading the ostensibly funny book about a clumsy bear who failed to live by the complex rules of forest society and constantly needed to learn distsiplina (discipline) from his animal peers. "We can all use some more distsiplina," Teacher Vera would say. "It is what our vozhd"--or "leader"--"expects from us." Then she would show them the photograph of a man who looked like a sad but disciplined hamster in a suit in front of a tricolor flag.”

HumorDisciplineRussiaSeriousnessRussianRussiansVladimir PutinRussian Language
Book:Vera, or Faith
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“Then there were times when Vassy compulsively yet touchingly would get very drunk and break down in great heaving sobs when we got home. No one could possibly understand what it meant to be a 'fucking Russian in America,' he sobbed. 'My fucking country, my beloved Russia,' he would cry. 'No one understands my country. You judge us, you condemn us, you believe we have swords in our teeth. You're so conditioned, so brainwashed, even more than we are. At least Russians know about America, not only bad things. And you here imagine Russia as a concentration camp! You don't like Commies! That's your problem. Now I hear Americans think 'Russian' is the same as evil, stupidity, idleness. That's dangerous! What about our culture, our music, our ingenuity, our patience, endurance--these are qualities, not drawbacks! Yes, we are fucking different, why not? Why should we be the same? Instead of trying to change each other, why don't we simply tolerate our differences and enjoy similarities?”

RussiansRussian CultureRussian SoulRusso American Relations
Book:Dancing in the Light
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“In the 1930's Yanik brought blinis and apple charlottes, beef stroganoff and kulich to Tehran, opening the first confectionary with a garden café. He came with his wife, Nina, who spooned cinnamon-scented ground beef and onions into delicate piroshkies and learned to cook Persian food by trial and error, nourishing her family and customers with a generous spirit, mingling delicately with neighbors, and learning to speak Farsi. To steady their leap across borders, Yanik changed his surname from Yedemsky to Yadegar, and planted a small orchard of pomegranate, almond, and mulberry trees that would shade the terrace tables.”

ImmigrantsFruit TreesRussiansPersian CuisineRussian Cuisine
Book:The Last Days of Café Leila
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“The Soviets were worried that the Americans would attack their "sparkling new Mir space station, ... in a space shuttle, throw out grappling hooks, forcibly board the peaceful habitat and claim it as captured territory. To the hard-core Soviet mind-set, the American government was an unstable combination of cowboys and gangsters, unpredictable and capable of any insane action. The cosmonauts would have to be armed against outrageous aggression.”

Cold WarParanoiaGangstersPiratesSpace ProgramCowboysRussians
Book:Atomic Adventures: Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder
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“Уся Росія - країна якихось жадібних і лінивих людей: вони страшенно багато їдять, п'ють, люблять спати вдень й уві сні хропуть. Одружуються вони задля порядку в домі, а коханок заводять задля престижу в суспільстві. Психологія у них собача: б'ють їх - вони тихесенько поскиглюють і ховаються по своїх норах, приголублять - вони лягають на спину, лапки догори й виляють хвостиками.”

RussiaRussianRussiansроссияросіяросіяни
Author:Anton Chekhov
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“Russia will never be really civilized, because it was civilized too soon. Peter has a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing. ... His first wish was to make Germans or Englishmen, when he ought to have been making Russians; and he prevented his subjects from ever becoming what they might have been by persuading them that they were what they are not.”

RussiaRussiansPeter The GreatMuscovyMuscovites
Book:The Social Contract
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