Nikolay Karamzin > Quotes

“What is life? - A novel. Who is the author? - Anonymous. We read haltingly, laugh, weep... and sleep.

Что наша жизнь? - роман. Кто автор? - аноним. Читаем по складам, смеемся, плачем... спим.”
― Nikolai Karamzin

“A sensitive heart is a rich source of ideas.”
― Nikolay Karamzin

“He desired more, yet more, and finally was not able to desire anything—for whoever knows his heart, whoever has reflected upon the moral nature of man, will certainly agree with me that there can be no pleasure for us without desire.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“It is strange, strange, my friend, that I could have lived peacefully and happily before I came to know you! This is incomprehensible to me now; now I think that without you, life is not life but rather melancholy and boredom. Without your eyes, the bright moon is dark; without your voice, the nightingale's song is tiresome; without your breathing, the gentle breeze is disagreeable.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“Her sweet daughter brightened all of nature with her merriment.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“How good is everything that comes from the Lord God! I have lived to see three score years on this earth, and yet I never tire of looking at the Lord's works, never tire of looking at the clear sky rising like a high tent and at the earth, which each year is covered anew in grass and flowers. It must be so that the King of Heaven loves us very much, since He has adorned our world so well.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“Happiness dwells not in a solitary bosom, nor has heaven designed your beauties to molder in the cold shades of neglect.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“True happiness can only be found in the paths of virtue.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“The wonders of the creation may be described, but the springs of the heart operate in the heart alone.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“There, resting on the ruins of gravestones, I hearken to the dull moan of times now devoured by the abyss of the past - a moan which causes my heart to shudder and tremble.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“But the mysteries which surround the tomb do not worry the heart of the upright and good.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Oh! How I love those subjects that touch my heart and compel me to shed tears of tender sorrow!”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“Liza,” she said, “how perfect are the works of the creation. I have passed upwards of sixty years in admiration of the blessings of providence, and I still find new causes for our gratitude.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Upon their first meeting, Liza's beauty had made an impression in his heart. He read novels and idylls, had a rather lively imagination, and in his mind frequently transported himself back to those times (real or imagined) when, according to the accounts of poets, everyone strolled lightheartedly through meadows, bathed in the waters of pure springs, kissed like turtledoves, reclined in the shade of rose and myrtle beaches, and spent all their days in happy idleness. It appeared to him that he had found in Liza what his heart had long sought.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“Nature summons me into its embrace, to its unsullied joys.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“Oh! He kissed her, kissed her with such ardor that the entire universe appeared to her to be ablaze!”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“For it is a fatal truth that virtue, the most exalted, cannot always shield the human heart from the severest afflictions.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“the daily occupation of a person serves as a mirror to display the propensities of the heart.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Whoever knows the human heart must feel that fruition is the rock which wrecks imprudent love.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Women complain about men, and men complain about women. Who is right?”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“There is a critical moment in the calendar of love, and its power is infinite.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“достохвальный между частными людьми, но слабый и, следственно, порочный на степени Государей.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, История государства Российского. Том 2

“Those pedagogues were not then in existence, and secondly, the Russians in general knew little about books. They brought up their children as nature rears her plants.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Love which blinds us to defects and represents things not as they are, but as we wish them.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“I will not sacrifice to the empty opinion of the world that sensible, innocent, and, confiding heart which has placed its tranquility in me.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“успехом”
― Nikolay Karamzin, История государства Российского

“Those who have not been fathers, cannot know a father’s feelings.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“When a woman seriously fixes a determination, nothing can exceed the resolution, constancy, and perseverance of her conduct.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza and Other Tales

“Who would want to die if at times we did not feel sorrow? ... Evidently it must be so. Perhaps we would forget our soul if tears never flowed from our eyes.”
― Nikolay Karamzin, Poor Liza

“ибо народ всегда склонен обвинять Правителей, если они не умеют отвратить бедствий от Государства. Сих”
― Nikolay Karamzin, История государства Российского. Том 1