Nikolai Gogol · 84 pages
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“They don’t listen to me, they don’t hear me, they don’t see me.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Do we ever get what we really want? Do we ever achieve what our powers have ostensibly equipped us for? No: everything works by contraries.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“April 43rd 2000
Today is the day of great triumph. There is a king of Spain. He has been found at last. That king is me. I only discovered this today. Frankly, it all came to me in a flash.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“But my very latest discovery made me feel better. I had found that every rooster has his own Spain and he has it under his feathers.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“I am very fond of the theatre. If I have only a kopeck in my pocket, I always go there. Most of my fellow-officials are uneducated boors, and never enter a theatre unless one throws free tickets at their head.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“La gloire ne peut apporter de joie à qui l'a volée: elle ne fait palpiter que les cœurs dignes d'elle.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Der Mond wird doch gewöhnlich in Hamburg hergestellt, und zwar sehr nachlässig. Ich wundere mich, dass England dem keine Aufmerksamkeit schenkt. Ein lahmer Böttcher stellt ihn her, und der Dummkopf hat offenbar keine Ahnung vom Mond. Er nimmt geteertes Tauwerk und einen Teil Baumöl, und davon verbreitet sich über die Erde entsetzlicher Gestank, so dass man die Nase zustopfen muss. Und daher ist der Mond eine so zerbrechliche Kugel, auf der kein Mensch leben kann, auf der nur Nasen leben. Und deshalb können wir unsere Nasen selber nicht sehen, weil sie sich auf dem Mond befinden.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Keşke hiç olmasaydın şu dünyada, keşke sana hiç rastlamasaydım, keşke canlı bir varlık olacak yerde esinli bir ressamın yarattığı bir tablo olsaydın. O zaman resminin önünden hiç ayrılmaz, sonsuzcasına sana bakardım... öper, öperdim seni. Sonsuz güzel bir düş gibi seni yaşar, seni solur ve... mutlu olurdum.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“I think that it is one of the most refined joys of this world to interchange thoughts, feelings, and impressions.” (H'm!”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Así desapareció un ser humano que nunca tuvo quién lo amparara, a quien nadie había querido y que jamás interesó a nadie”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Что-то раздирало мою душу на части и не могло разодрать.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Woman is in love with the devil.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Beni en çok meraka düşüren, yarın bizi bekleyen önemli olay. Yarın sabah saat yedide garip bir tabiat olayı ile karşılaşacağız. Yeryüzümüz Ay'a bindirecek... Ünlü İngiliz kimyacısı Wellington da kaydetmişti bunu. İtiraf ederim, Ay'ın narin, dayanıksız yapısını düşündükçe sonucu fena hâlde merak ediyorum. Ay genel olarak Hamburg'da yapılır, hem yapılışı da çok kötüdür... İngiltere'nin bu konuyla neden ilgilenmediğine şaşarım. Zaten Ay'ı yapan, Ay hakkında en ufak bilgisi olmayan, aptal, üstelik topal bir fıçıcıdır. Üstündeki ziftli halata zeytinyağı sürdükleri için, yeryüzünün her yanı bu kadar pis kokuyor... Öte yandan bu derece nazik, ince yapılı Ay, insanların orada barınması için elverişli değildir, sadece burunları yerleşebilir Ay'a... Zaten bu yüzden Ay'da bulunan burunlarımızı göremeyiz. Şimdi Ay'ın yeryüzümüz gibi ağır bir nesne altında kalmasıyla burunlarımızın nasıl pestil haline geleceğini düşündüm ve kuşkulandım doğrusu. Çorabımı, kunduralarımı giyerek doğru toplantı salonuna gittim. Polis kuvvetlerine yeryüzünün Ay'ın üstüne oturmasını önlemeleri için emir verecektim. Toplantı salonunda gene kafaları tıraşlı bir sürü soylu kişiyle karşılaştım.
-Baylar! dedim. Ay tehlikededir. Yeryüzüne bindirecek... Kurtaralım Ay'ı!
Bunu söyler söylemez zeki, anlayışlı İspanya soyluları emrimi yerine getirmek için hep birden öne atıldılar. Bazıları Ay'ı korumak maksadıyla duvara tırmanmaya başladılar. Ama tam o sırada salona başvekil girdi; herkes kaçıştı... Kral olduğum için orada tek başıma kaldım. Acayip başvekil sırtıma sopa indire indire beni odama soktu. İspanya'nın milli gelenekleri pek şiddetli doğrusu!”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
“Throughout most of his life, Washington’s physical vigor had been one of his most priceless assets. A notch below six feet four and slightly above two hundred pounds, he was a full head taller than his male contemporaries. (John Adams claimed that the reason Washington was invariably selected to lead every national effort was that he was always the tallest man in the room.) A detached description of his physical features would have made him sound like an ugly, misshapen oaf: pockmarked face, decayed teeth, oversized eye sockets, massive nose, heavy in the hips, gargantuan hands and feet. But somehow, when put together and set in motion, the full package conveyed sheer majesty. As one of his biographers put it, his body did not just occupy space; it seemed to organize the space around it. He dominated a room not just with his size, but with an almost electric presence. “He has so much martial dignity in his deportment,” observed Benjamin Rush, “that there is not a king in Europe but would look like a valet de chambre by his side.”10 Not only did bullets and shrapnel seem to veer away from his body in battle, not only did he once throw a stone over the Natural Bridge in the Shenandoah Valley, which was 215 feet high, not only was he generally regarded as the finest horseman in Virginia, the rider who led the pack in most fox hunts, he also possessed for most of his life a physical constitution that seemed immune to disease or injury. Other soldiers came down with frostbite after swimming ice-choked rivers. Other statesmen fell by the wayside, lacking the stamina to handle the relentless political pressure. Washington suffered none of these ailments. Adams said that Washington had “the gift of taciturnity,” meaning he had an instinct for the eloquent silence. This same principle held true on the physical front. His medical record was eloquently empty.11”
― Joseph J. Ellis, quote from Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
“It is God which worketh in you." He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone.”
― A.W. Tozer, quote from The Knowledge of the Holy
“Imagine that light is shining out from a flashlight. According to common sense, if we run fast enough we could in principle catch up with the front of the beam of light as it advances forward. Common sense might even suggest that we could jog alongside the front of the beam if we managed to run at the speed of light. But if we are to follow Maxwell’s equations to the letter, then no matter how fast we run, the beam still recedes away from us at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per second.”
― Brian Cox, quote from Why Does E=mc²? (And Why Should We Care?)
“Being from a Christian family doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage —”
― Terri Blackstock, quote from Last Light
“The way to finish the book is to turn down the volume on the stuff that’s all about how other people react.”
― David Lipsky, quote from Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace
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