“I ask everyone in Russia to pray for me, beginning with the bishops, whose whole…” — 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.

Let my body be delivered to the earth without attention to the place where it lies; nothing should be associated with my dusty remains. Shame on him who draws any attention to a rotted flesh that is already no longer mine: he is worshipping the worms nibbling it.

I am a writer, and the duty of a writer is not only to furnish pleasant pursuits for the mind and taste: he will be held accountable if things useful to the soul are not disseminated by his works and if nothing remains after him as a precept for mankind.

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.