Quotes from Nikolai Gogol

UTTERLY NONSENSICAL things happen in this world. Sometimes there is absolutely no rhyme or reason in them: suddenly the very nose which had been going around with the rank of a state councillor and created such a stir in the city, found itself again, as though nothing were the matter, in its proper place, that is to say, between the two cheeks of Major Kovalyov.

They had an almost irresistible tendency to degenerate into a kind of lolloping amble.

Instantly Nozdrev burst into a laugh compassable only by a healthy man in whose head every tooth still remains as white as sugar. By this I mean the laugh of quivering cheeks, the laugh which causes a neighbour who is sleeping behind double doors three rooms away to leap from his bed and exclaim with distended eyes, "Hullo! Something HAS upset him!

and by their frequent sacrifices to Bacchus they showed that even yet there remains in the Slavonic nature a certain element of paganism.

Tchítchikov deu a ela uma moedinha de cobre, e a menina foi caminhado para casa, bem contente por ter andando na boleira da caleche.

Only when he died did they find out, with regret, that the Public Prosecutor had had a soul, although out of modesty he had never flaunted it.

sbitentshik [*an urn for brewing honey tea],

In the department of...but it would be better not to say in which department.

Wise is he who disdains no character, but, fixing a searching eye on him, explores him down to the first causes… Blessed is the man who has chosen the most noble passion from among them all.

must confess that I do not understand why things are so arranged, that women should seize us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot. Either their hands are so constructed or else our noses are good for nothing else.

Así desapareció un ser humano a quien nadie defendió, a quien nadie había querido, por quien nadie se interesó… Fue un ser que soportó humildemente las burlas de sus colegas y que bajó a la tumba sin haber realizado nada extraordinario.

No sooner had the town dropped back than all sort of stuff and nonsense, as is usual with us, began scrawling itself along both sides of the road: tussocks, fir trees, low skimpy stands of young pines, charred trunks of old ones, wild heather, and similar gibberish.

What has made you come to such a sudden decision?" asked the perplexed Vassili (very nearly he added: "Fancy going travelling with a man whose acquaintance you have just made, and who may turn out to be a rascal or the devil knows what!" But, in spite of his distrust, he contented himself with another covert scrutiny of Chichikov, and this time came to the conclusion that there was no fault to be found with his exterior).

Many of the ladies were dressed well and fashionably, others were dressed in whatever God sends to a provincial town.

And at such moments his eyes would grow winning, and his features assume an expression of intense satisfaction. Yet never did these projects pass beyond the stage of debate. Likewise there lay in his study a book with the fourteenth page permanently turned down. It was a book which he had been reading for the past two years!

The devil take those who first invented balls!" was his reflection. "Who derives any real pleasure from them? In this province there exist want and scarcity everywhere: yet folk go in for balls! How absurd, too, were those overdressed women! One of them must have had a thousand roubles on her back, and all acquired at the expense of the overtaxed peasant, or, worse still, at that of the conscience of her neighbour.

Like Ivan Ivanovich, Ivan Nikiforovich has a great dislike of fleas; and therefore neither Ivan Ivanovich nor Ivan Nikiforovich ever passes a Jewish peddler without buying various jars of elixirs against these insects from him, having first given him a good scolding for confessing the Jewish faith.

God, how beautiful some posts and jobs are! how they elevate and delight the soul! but, alas! I am not in the civil service and am denied the pleasure of beholding my superiors' refined treatment of me.

We're all stupid, chasing after vanity!" ... "Really, it comes from idleness! Everything's near, everything's close at hand, yet we run to some far-off kingdom. Is it not life, if one is occupied, be it even in a remote corner? The pleasure indeed consists in labor. And nothing's sweeter than the fruit of one's own labors . . .

even the gendarme who is posted at the distant door — a man, perhaps, who has never before compassed a smile, but is more accustomed to dealing out blows to the populace — summons up a kind of grin, even though the grin resembles the grimace of a man who is about to sneeze after inadvertently taking an over-large pinch of snuff.

Dio mio, come sei bella, a volte, lunga, lunga strada. Quante volte, come un naufrago che sta per affogare mi sono afferrato a te, e tu ogni volta mi hai raccolto misericordiosa e mi hai salvato! E quante idee meravigliose sono nate in te, quante fantasie poetiche, quante impressioni stupende ho provato!

We all know that there are a great many faces in the world, over the carving of which nature has spent no great pains, has used no delicate tools such as files or gimlets, but has simply rough-hewn them with a swing of the arm: one stroke of the axe and there's a nose, another and there are the lips, the eyes are bored with a great drill, and without polishing it off, nature thrusts it into the world, saying, "This will do.

And so let us trot out the rascal!

quelle mille inezie che sembrano inezie solo quando vanno a finire dentro un libro, ma quando circolano per il mondo sono considerati affari molto importanti.