Mikhail Lermontov - People Quotes

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Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.

Mikhail Lermontov

The history of a man's soul, even the pettiest soul, is hardly less interesting and useful than the history of a whole people; especially when the former is the result of the observations of a mature mind upon itself, and has been written without any egotistical desire of arousing sympathy or astonishment. Rousseau's Confessions has precisely this defect – he read it to his friends.

Mikhail Lermontov

Ever since I lived and entered into action, fate has somehow led me to the climax of other people's dramas...I have always been the essential character of the fifth act.

Mikhail Lermontov

In people's eyes I read
Pages of malice and sin.

Mikhail Lermontov

I was involuntarily struck by the aptitude which the Russian displays for accommodating himself to the customs of the people in whose midst he happens to be living. I know not whether this mental quality is deserving of censure or commendation, but it proves the incredible pliancy of his mind and the presence of that clear common sense which pardons evil wherever it sees that evil is inevitable or impossible of annihilation.

Mikhail Lermontov