Alexander Pushkin Quotes

43 Sourced Quotes

What grace could all your worldly power bring
To One whose crown of thorns has made him King,
The Christ who gave His body to the flails,
Who humbly bore the lance and piercing nails?
Or do you fear the rabble might disgrace The One.

Alexander Pushkin
Always contented with his life,
and with his dinner, and his wife.

Alexander Pushkin
When, wrapped in storm, shall I be battling
The billows, while the shrouds are rattling,
And roam the sea's expanse unpent,
Quit of the shore's dull element?
'Tis time to seek the southern surges
Beneath my Afric's sunny sky,
And, there at home, for Russia sigh,
Lamenting in new songs and dirges
The land that knew my love, my pain,
Where long my buried heart is lain.

Alexander Pushkin
A green oak grows by a curving shore;
And round that oak hangs a golden chain.

Alexander Pushkin
To me; here, my Madonna, thou shalt throne:
Most pure exemplar of the purest grace.

Alexander Pushkin
Disrespect for one's ancestors is the first sign of barbarity and immorality.

Alexander Pushkin
The clock of doom had struck as fated;
the poet, without a sound,
let fall his pistol on the ground.

Alexander Pushkin
"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice: "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna."

Alexander Pushkin
Unforced, as conversation passed,
he had the talent of saluting
felicitously every theme,
of listening like a judge-supreme
while serious topics were disputing,
or, with an epigram-surprise,
of kindling smiles in ladies' eyes.

Alexander Pushkin
Moscow... how many strains are fusing
in that one sound, for Russian hearts!
what store of riches it imparts!

Alexander Pushkin
Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world.

Alexander Pushkin
The less we show our love to a woman,
Or please her less, and neglect our duty,
The more we trap and ruin her surely
In the flattering toils of philandery.

Alexander Pushkin
But, as it is, this pied collection
begs your indulgence — it's been spun
from threads both sad and humoristic,
themes popular or idealistic,
products of carefree hours, of fun,
of sleeplessness, faint inspirations,
of powers unripe, or on the wane,
of reason's icy intimations,
and records of a heart in pain.

Alexander Pushkin
Upon the brink of the wild stream
He stood, and dreamt a mighty dream.

Alexander Pushkin
A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

Alexander Pushkin
Come purge my soul, Thou Master of my days,
Of vain and empty words, of idle ways,
Of base ambition and the urge to rule;
That hidden serpent that corrupts a fool;
and grant me, Lord, to see my sins alone.
That I not call my brother to atone;
Make chaste my heart and lend me from above
Thy fortitude, humility, and love.

Alexander Pushkin
Nothing is hidden from the eyes of the observing world.

Alexander Pushkin
From early youth his dedication
Was to a single occupation…
The science of the tender passion.

Alexander Pushkin
"The bread of the stranger is bitter," says Dante, "and his staircase hard to climb." But who can know what the bitterness of dependence is so well as the poor companion of an old lady of quality?

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
A woman's love for us increases
The less we love her, sooth to say—
She stoops, she falls, her struggling ceases;
Caught fast, she cannot get away.

Alexander Pushkin
God grant you, friends, a helping hand—
In cares of state and private plights,
In rowdy feasts of friendship's band,
In passion's sweet and secret rites!
God grant you, friends, a helping hand—
In daily woes and days of strife,
On vacant sa, in distant land,
In every black abyss of life!

Alexander Pushkin
Habit is Heaven's own redress:
it takes the place of happiness.

Alexander Pushkin
'Tis time, my friend, 'tis time!
For rest the heart is aching;
Days follow days in flight, and every day is taking
Fragments of being, while together you and I
Make plans to live. Look, all is dust, and we shall die.

Alexander Pushkin
Send me, Almighty, I petition,
In porticoes or at a ball
No bonneted academician,
No seminarist in a yellow shawl!
No more than in red lips unsmiling
Can I find anything beguiling
In grammar-perfect Russian speech.
What purist magazines beseech,
A novel breed of belles may heed it,
And bend us (for my life of sin)
To strict grammatic discipline,
Prescribing meter, too, where needed;
But I - what is all this to me?
I like things as they used to be

Alexander Pushkin