Muscovites Quotes

“Muscovites see clearly but write muddily; the eye grasps but the fingers splay.”
― Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Autobiography of a Corpse

“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.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract