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
There are two men in me--one lives in the full sense of the word, the other reasons and passes judgment on the first. The first will perhaps take leave of you and the world forever in an hour now; and the second . . . the second?
Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other, although frequently neither acknowledges the fact to himself.
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.
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.
My whole life has been merely a succession of miserable and unsuccessful denials of feelings or reason.
For what did the creator prepare me,Why did he so terribly contradictThe hopes of my youth?...
Women only love those that they don’t know.
Passions are merely ideas in their initial stage.
Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others.
What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet.
Russian ladies, for the most part, cherish only Platonic love, without mingling any thought of matrimony with it; and Platonic love is exceedingly embarrassing.
If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.
I want to reconcile myself with heaven,I want to love, I want to pray,I want to believe in good.
What is this eternity to me without you?What is the infinity of my domains?Empty ringing words,A spacious temple - without a divinity!