Mikhail Lermontov

Our public is still so immature and simple-hearted that it doesn't understand a fable unless it finds the moral at the end.

Oh women, women! Who really does understand them? Their smiles contradict their glances, their words promise and beguile, but their tone of voice repulses.

From life's turmoil I've drawn a few ideas, but no feeling.

Hitch up twenty of the animals if you want to and they won't budge as soon as those fellows begin yelling in their own language. . .

How long was he with you?" I asked.

"Just about a year. But it was a year I won't forget.

any book. It serves either to explain the purpose of the work or to defend the author from his critics. Ordinarily, however, readers are concerned with neither the moral nor the journalistic attacks on the author – as a result they don't read prefaces. Well, that's too bad, especially in our country

People have been fed so much candy they are sick to their stomachs. Now bitter medicine and acid truths are needed.