Alexander Pushkin Quotes

I have outlasted all desire,My dreams and I have grown apart;My grief alone is left entire,The gleamings of an empty heart.The storms of ruthless dispensationHave struck my flowery garland numb,I live in lonely desolationAnd wonder when my end will come.Thus on a naked tree-limb, blastedBy tardy winter's whistling chill,A single leaf which has outlastedIts season will be trembling still.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Ever peaceful be you slumberThough your days were few in numberOn this earth-spite took its toll-Yet shall heaven have your soulWith pure love we did regard youFor your loved one did we guard youBut you came not to the groomOnly to a chill dark tomb

~ Alexander Pushkin

And once more given to inaction,Empty in spirit and alone,He settled down – to the distractionOf making other minds his own;Collecting books, he stacked a shelfful,Read, read, not even one was helpful:Here, there was dullness, there pretence;This one lacked conscience, that one sense;All were by different shackles fettered;And, past times having lost their hold,The new still raved about the old.Like women, books he now deserted,And mourning taffeta he drewAcross the bookshelf’s dusty crew.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Blest who was youthful in his youth;blest who matured at the right time;who gradually the chill of lifewith years was able to withstand;who never was addicted to strange dreams;who did not shun the fahsinable rabble;who was at twenty fop or blade,and then at thirty, profitably married;who rid himself at fifty of private and of other debts;who fame, money, and rankin due course calmly gained;about whom lifelong one kept saying:N. N. is an excellent man.But it is sad to think that to no purposeyouth was given us,that we betrayed it every hour,that it duped us;that our best wishes,that our fresh dreamings,in quick succession have decayedlike leaves in putrid autumn.It is unbearable to see before oneonly of dinners a long series,to look on life as on a rite,and in the wake of the decorous crowdto go, not sharing with iteither general views, or passions.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Blest who was youthful in his youth;blest who matured at the right time;who gradually the chill of lifewith years was able to withstand;who never was addicted to strange dreams;who did not shun the fashionable rabble;who was at twenty fop or blade,and then at thirty, profitably married;who rid himself at fiftyof private and of other debts;who fame, money, and rankin due course calmly gained;about whom lifelong one kept saying:N. N. is an excellent man.But it is sad to think that to no purposeyouth was given us,that we betrayed it every hour,that it duped us;that our best wishes,that our fresh dreamings,in quick succession have decayedlike leaves in putrid autumn.It is unbearable to see before oneonly of dinners a long series,to look on life as on a rite,and in the wake of the decorous crowdto go, not sharing with iteither general views, or passions.

~ Alexander Pushkin

In alien lands I keep the bodyOf ancient native rites and things:I gladly free a little birdieAt celebration of the spring.I'm now free for consolation,And thankful to almighty Lord:At least, to one of his creationsI've given freedom in this world!

~ Alexander Pushkin

The less we love her when we woo her,The more we draw a woman in

~ Alexander Pushkin

He who has lived and thought can't helpdespising people in his soul;him who has felt disturbs the ghost of irrecoverable days;for him there are no more enchantments;him does the snake of memories,him does repentance bite.

~ Alexander Pushkin

When I want somebody to read to, To match a dream with tuneful phrase,It is my nurse that I pay heed to,Companion of my youthful days,Or, following a boring dinner,A neihbour comes in, who I corner,Catch at his coat tails suddenlyAnd choke him with a tragedy,Or, (here I am no longer jesting),Haunted by rhymes and yearning's ache,I roam beside my country lakeAnd scare a flock of wild ducks resting:Hearing my strophes' sweet-toned chants,They fly off from the banks at once.

~ Alexander Pushkin

I was born for the peaceful life,for rural quiet:the lyre's voice in the wild is more resounding,creative dreams are more alive.To harmless leisures consecrated,I wander by a wasteful lakeand far niente is my rule.By every morn I am awakened unto sweet mollitude and freedom;little I read, a lot I sleep,fugitive fame do not pursue.Was it not thus in former years,that I spent in inaction, in the shade,my happiest days?

~ Alexander Pushkin

With belles no longer did he fall in love,but dangled after them just anyhow;when they refused, he solaced in a twinkle;when they betrayed, was glad to rest.He would seek them without intoxication,while he left them without regret,hardly remembering their love and spite.Exactly thus does an indifferent guestdrive up for evening whist:sits down; then, once the game is over,he drives off from the place,at home falls peacefully asleep,and in the morning does not know himself where he will drive to in the evening.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Perhaps you'd like, you gentle fellow, To hear what I'm prepared to sayOn kinfolk and their implications?Well, here's my view of close relations:They're people whom we're bound to prize, To honor, love, and idolize,And following the old tradition,To visit come the Christmas feast, Or send a wish by mail at least;All other days they've our permission,To quite forget us if they please-So grant them, God, long life and ease!

~ Alexander Pushkin

Light-minded society mercilessly persecutes in reality what it allows in theory

~ Alexander Pushkin

My whole life has been pledged to this meeting with you...

~ Alexander Pushkin

He who has lived and thought can't helpdespising people in his soul;him who has felt disturbs the ghost of irrecoverable days;for him there are no more enchantments;him does the snake of memories, him does repentance bite.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe?Who is the only one that won't betray us?Who measures all deeds, all speechesobligingly by our own foot rule?Who does not sow slander about us?Who coddles us with care?To whom our vice is not so bad?Who never bores us?Unlike a futile phantom-seekerwho wastes effort in vain-love your own self,my honorworthy reader.A worthy object! Nothingmore amiable surely exists.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Thus heaven's gift to us is this: That habit takes the place of bliss.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Recalling former years’ romances,Recalling love that time enhances,With tenderness, with not a care,Alive, at liberty once more,We drank, in mute intoxication,The breath of the indulgent night!Just as a sleepy convict mightBe carried from incarcerationInto a greenwood, so were weBorne to our youth by reverie.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Tell him that riches will not procure for you a single moment of happiness. Luxury consoles poverty alone, and at that only for a short time, until one becomes accustomed to it.

~ Alexander Pushkin

He who has lived and thought can neverHelp in his soul despising men,He who has felt will be foreverHaunted by days he can’t regain.For him there are no more enchantments,Him does the serpent of remembrance,Him does repentance always gnaw.All this will frequently affordA great delight to conversations.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Moral maxims are surprisingly useful on occasions when we can invent little else to justify our actions.

~ Alexander Pushkin

Love is for every age auspicious,But for the virginal and youngIts impulses are more propitiousLike vernal storms on meadows sprung:They freshen in the rain of passion,Ripening in their renovation –And life, empowered, sends up shootsOf richest blooms and sweetest fruits.But at a late age, dry and fruitless,The final stage to which we’re led,Sad is the trace of passions dead:Thus storms in autumn, cold and ruthless,Transform the field into a slough,And strip the trees from root to bough.

~ Alexander Pushkin

How sad, however, if we're givenOur youth as something to betray,And what if youth in turn is drivenTo cheat on us, each hour, each day,If our most precious aspirations,Our freshest dreams, imaginationsIn fast succession have decayed,As leaves, in putrid autumn, fade.It is too much to see before oneNothing but dinners in a row,Behind the seemly crowd to go,Regarding life as mere decorum,Having no common views to share,Nor passions that one might declare.

~ Alexander Pushkin

The noontide of my life is starting,Which I must needs accept, I know;But oh, my light youth, if we're parting,I want you as a friend to go!My thanks to you for the enjoyments,The sadness and the pleasant torments,The hubbub, storms, festivity,For all that you have given me;My thanks to you. I have delightedIn you when times were turbulent,When times were calm... to full extent;Enough now! With a soul clear-sightedI set out on another questAnd from my old life take a rest.Let me glance back. Farewell, you arboursWhere, in the backwoods, I recallDays filled with indolence and ardoursAnd dreaming of a pensive soul.And you, my youthful inspiration,Keep stirring my imagination,My heart's inertia vivify,More often to my corner fly.Let not a poet's soul be frozen,Made rough and hard, reduced to boneAnd finally be turned to stoneIn that benumbing world he goes in,In that intoxicating sloughWhere, friends, we bathe together now.

~ Alexander Pushkin

But flaming youth in all it's madnessKeeps nothing of its heart concealed:It's loves and hates, its joys and sadness,Are babbled out and soon revealed.

~ Alexander Pushkin

To love all ages yield surrender,But to the young it's raptures bringA blessing bountiful and tender-As storms refresh the fields of spring.

~ Alexander Pushkin

God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others.

~ Alexander Pushkin

I gaze forward without fear.

~ Alexander Pushkin

I've lived to see my longings dieI've lived to se my longings die:My dreams and I have grown apart;Now only sorrow haunts my eye,The wages of a bitter heart.Beneath the storms of hostile fate,My flowery wreath has faded fast;I live alone and sadly waitTo see when death will come at last.Just so, when the winds in winter moanAnd snow descends in frigid flakes,Upon a naked branch, alone,The final leaf of summer shakes!

~ Alexander Pushkin

Please never despise the translator. He's the mailman of human civilization.

~ Alexander Pushkin