LEONID ANDREYEV QUOTES
Russian playwright, novelist & short story writer (1871-1919)
The only thing not worth destroying is science. That would be useless. Science is unchangeable, and if you destroyed it today, it would rise up again the same as before.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Who strikes man with love -- God or the Devil?
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
All perishes, all decays, all is born again.
LEONID ANDREYEV
King Hunger
Only the footsteps of the blind are short, but their thoughts are long.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Anathema
There is no beast more cruel than man.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.
LEONID ANDREYEV
"Lazarus"
Ah well, 'tis the way of the world -- births and deaths, births and deaths.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
What worse can happen to a man than to have been born? It's like asking a man who is drowning whether he is not afraid of getting wet.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
Death augments distance and dulls the memory. Death reconciles.
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
Who is all-powerful in the world? Who is most dreadful in the world? The machine. Who is most fair, most wealthy, and all-wise? The machine. What is the earth? A machine. What is the sky? A machine. What is man? A machine. A machine.
LEONID ANDREYEV
King Hunger
Man dies. Come from darkness, into darkness he returns, and is reabsorbed, without a trace left, into the illimitable void of time.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
Bread without love is like grass without salt -- the stomach may be filled, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Anathema
It's a powerful instrument, dynamite -- nothing like it for a convincing argument!
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
To succeed in life one needs two things -- influence and a lucky star.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
Do you not see the hand of God, which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the mountains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory?
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
Only the dead know the truth.
LEONID ANDREYEV
Savva
When a woman weeps, it is a man's shame.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
I want to be the apostle of self destruction. I want my book to affect man's reason, his emotions, his nerves, his whole animal nature. I should like my book to make people turn pale with horror as they read it, to affect them like a drug, like a terrifying dream, to drive them mad, to make them curse and hate me but still to read me.
LEONID ANDREYEV
diary, Aug. 1, 1891
When a man has the rope about his neck, you don't ask him about his health!
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
The papers are full of murders -- strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Red Laugh