Lectures on Russian Literature / Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy

strength of Pushkin as a force in Russian literature comes from this his very weakness.

And the highest is only attainable not when our lives are guided by our gifts, but when our gifts are guided by our lives

And the highest is only attainable not when our lives are guided by our gifts, but when our gifts are guided by our lives.

. And the highest is only attainable not when our lives are guided by our gifts, but when our gifts are guided by our lives.

For Nature ever works in circles. Starting from health, the soul indeed in the end arrives at health, but only through the road of disease. And a good portion of the conscious period in the life of the soul is taken up by doubt, by despair, by disease.

the bed must be a most fatal place, since most people die in bed

The Russian writer is first of all in earnest

Faithfulness of labor and finish of form

Russians seem to have the instinctive sense of measure in personal matters.

The office of the Slavonic race has hitherto been passive, and its highest distinction has hitherto been solely either to serve as a sieve through which the vivifying waters of European thought shall pour upon the sleeping body of Asia, or as a dead wall to stem the wild devastating flow of Asiatic barbarism upon European civilization. The virtue of the Slavonic race is thus first of all passivity; and as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth and hollow, so the virtue of the Russian is first of all passive receptivity.