Maxim Gorky Quotes

The illness of a doctor is always worse than the illnesses of his patients.The patients only feel, but the doctor, as well as feeling, has a pretty good idea of the destructive effect of the disease on his constitution.This is a case in which knowledge brings death nearer.

~ Maxim Gorky

Politics is something similar to the lower physiological functions, with the unpleasant difference that political functions are unavoidably carried out in public.

~ Maxim Gorky

Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of the free man.

~ Maxim Gorky

The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.

~ Maxim Gorky

An artist is a man who digests his own subjective impressions and knows how to find a general objective meaning in them, and how to express them in a convincing form.

~ Maxim Gorky

The poor are always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street there are groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and dirty. Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in ground where there was no healthy nourishment.

~ Maxim Gorky

Our existence has always and everywhere been tragic, but man has converted these numberless tragedies into works of art. I know of nothing more astonishing or more wonderful than this transformation.

~ Maxim Gorky

Like some wondrous birds out of fairy tales, books sang their songs to me and spoke to me as though communing with one languishing in prison; they sang of the variety and richness of life, of man’s audacity in his strivings towards goodness and beauty.

~ Maxim Gorky

the mother again remarked the simplicity and calmness of their relation to each other. it was hard for her to get used to it. no kissing, no affictionate words passed between them but they behaved so sincerely, so amicably and so solicitously toward each other. in the life she had been accustomed to, people kissed a great deal and uttered many sentimental words, but always bit at one another like hungry dogs.

~ Maxim Gorky

In the monotony of everyday existence grief comes as a holiday, and a fire is an entertainment. A scratch embellishes an empty face.

~ Maxim Gorky

Remembrance of the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future

~ Maxim Gorky

we people at the bottom feel everything; but it is hard for us to speak out our hearts. our thoughts float about in us. we are ashamed because, although we understand, we are not able to express them; an often from shame we are angry at our thoughts, and at those who inspire them. we drive them away from ourselves

~ Maxim Gorky

In recalling my childhood I like to picture myself as a beehive to which various simple obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life, generously enriching my character with their own experience. Often this honey was dirty and bitter, but every scrap of knowledge was honey all the same.

~ Maxim Gorky

All of us are pilgrims on this earth. I have even heard it said that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.

~ Maxim Gorky

They destroy lives with work. What for? They rob men of their lives. What for, I ask? My master—I lost my life in the textile mill of Nefidov—my master presented one prima donna with a golden wash basin. Every one of her toilet articles was gold. That basin holds my life-blood, my very life. That's for what my life went! A man killed me with work in order to comfort his mistress with my blood. He bought her a gold wash basin with my blood.

~ Maxim Gorky

Those———here he flung out a terrible oath—those people don't know what their blind hands are sowing. They will know when our power is complete and we begin to mow down their cursed grass. They'll know it then!

~ Maxim Gorky

This is the way it ought to be! said the Little Russian, returning. Because, mark you, mother dear, a new heart is coming into existence, a new heart is growing up in life. All hearts are smitten in the conflict of interests, all are consumed with a blind greed, eaten up with envy, stricken, wounded, and dripping with filth, falsehood, and cowardice. All people are sick; they are afraid to live; they wander about as in a mist. Everyone feels only his own toothache. But lo, and behold! Here is a Man coming and illuminating life with the light of reason, and he shouts: 'Oh, ho! you straying roaches! It's time, high time, for you to understand that all your interests are one, that everyone has the need to live, everyone has the desire to grow!' The Man who shouts this is alone, and therefore he cries aloud; he needs comrades, he feels dreary in his loneliness, dreary and cold. And at his call the stanch hearts unite into one great, strong heart, deep and sensitive as a silver bell not yet cast. And hark! This bell rings forth the message: 'Men of all countries, unite into one family! Love is the mother of life, not hate!' My brothers! I hear this message sounding through the world!

~ Maxim Gorky

...the more a human creature has tasted of bitter things the more it hungers after the sweet things of life. And we, wrapped round in rags of our virtues, and regarding others through the mist of our self-sufficiency, and persuaded of our universal impeccability, do not understand this.

~ Maxim Gorky

To an old man any place that's warm is homeland.

~ Maxim Gorky

Every new time will give its law.

~ Maxim Gorky

Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.

~ Maxim Gorky

Only mothers can think of the future - because they give birth to it in their children.

~ Maxim Gorky