Quotes from Dead Souls

Quotations follow the Robert A. Maguire translation (Penguin Classics, 2004) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes—only the weird sound of your collar-bells.

2. 3

   Ah, troika, troika, swift as a bird, who was it first invented you?

3. 4

   It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.

4. 5

   The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.

5. 6

   For what Russian does not love to drive fast? Which of us does not at times yearn to give his horses their head, and to let them go, and to cry, "To the devil with the world!"?

6. 7

   As you pass from the soft years of youth into harsh, hardening manhood, be sure you take with you on the way all the humane emotions, do not leave them on the road: you will not pick them up again afterwards!

7. 8

   In the britchka was seated such a gentleman—a man who, though not handsome, was not ill-favoured, not over-fat, and not over-thin. Also, though not over-elderly, he was not over-young.

8. 9

   And could a man sink to such triviality, such meanness, such nastiness? Could he change so much? And is it true to life? Yes, it is all true to life.

9. 10

   "Look at that carriage," one of them said to the other. "Think you it will be going as far as Moscow?" "I think it will," replied his companion. "But not as far as Kazan, eh?" "No, not as far as Kazan."

10. 11

    Happy the writer who, passing by tedious and repulsive characters that impress us by their painful reality, attaches himself to characters that display the loftiest virtues of humanity.