Whatever you may say, the body depends on the soul.

- Nikolai Gogol

They're thinking of turning the peasant into an educated man. Why, first of all they should make him a good and prosperous farmer and then he'll learn all that is necessary for him to know.

- Nikolai Gogol

Always think of what is useful and not what is beautiful. Beauty will come of its own accord.

- Nikolai Gogol

Countless as the sands of the sea are human passions.

- Nikolai Gogol

Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past.

- Nikolai Gogol

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

- Nikolai Gogol

There are certain words which are nearer and dearer to a man than any others.

- Nikolai Gogol

You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.

- Nikolai Gogol

The experience of ages has shown that a man who works on the land is purer, nobler, higher, and more moral... Agriculture should be at the basis of everything. That's my idea.

- Nikolai Gogol

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.

- Nikolai Gogol

We ought to thank God for that. Yes, the man who tills the land is more worthy of respect than any.

- Nikolai Gogol

It's the most righteous, which of course is not the same thing as the most profitable.

- Nikolai Gogol

The Lord grant we may all be tillers of the soil.

- Nikolai Gogol

Russia! Russia... Everything in you is open, desolate and level; your squat towns barely protrude in the midst of the plains like dots, like counters; there is nothing to tempt or enchant the onlooker's gaze. But what is this inscrutable, mysterious force that draws me to you?

- Nikolai Gogol

Wise is the man who does not disdain any character and instead, examining him with a searching look, plumbs him to the very main-springs of his being.

- Nikolai Gogol