Best 78 quotes of Maxim Gorky on MyQuotes

To speak the truth is the most difficult of all arts, for in its "pure" form, not connected with the interests of individuals, groups, classes, or nations, truth is almost completely unsuitable for use by the Philistine and is unacceptable to him.

Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.

Two forces are succesfully influencing the education of a cultivated man: art and science. Both are united in the book.

We ever long for visions of beauty, We ever dream of unknown worlds.

We kill everybody, my dear. Some with bullets, some with words, and everybody with our deeds. We drive people into their graves, and neither see it nor feel it.

What can you do by killing? Nothing. You kill one dog, the master buys another-that's all there is to it.

What I'd like is to meet a man I could take off my hat to and say: "Thank you for having got born, and the longer you live the better.

What 'jazz' means to me is the worst kind of working conditions, the worst in cultural prejudice. The term 'jazz' has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians.

When a woman gets married it is like jumping into a hole in the ice in the middle of winter: you do it once and you remember it the rest of your days.

When one loves somebody, everything is clear - where to go, what to do - it all takes care of itself and one doesn't have to ask anybody about anything.

When the life is monotonous , even grief is a welcome event.

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.

With his own money a person can live as he likes-a ruble that's your own is dearer than a brother.

Writers build castles in the air, the reader lives inside, and the publisher inns the rent.

You can't do without philosophy, since everything has its hidden meaning which we must know.

You must write for children the same way you write for adults, only better.

A belief which is based on force of habit is one of the saddest and most harmful phenomena of our time－as in the shade of a stone wall everything new grows slowly, becoming stunted, lacking the sap of life. There were too few rays of love in that faith, too many insults, too much animosity and too much envy, which always goes hand in hand with hate. And the light emanating from that faith was nothing but the phosphorescent glow of putrefaction.

All of us are pilgrims on this earth. I have even heard it said that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.

Here I've been living along, year after year, forty of them behind me, with a wife and children, and not a soul in the world to talk to. Come moments when I think I just have to pour out my soul to somebody, to say all there is to say, and — no one to say it to! If you tell it to her—the wife, that is — it don't reach her. What's it to her? She's got her children, the house, her cares. She's outside my soul. Your wife's your friend till the first baby comes ... that's how it is. And in general, my wife—well, you can see for yourself—no fun with her—just a lump of flesh, damn it all! Ah, brother, what a heartache!

In recalling my childhood I like to picture myself as a beehive to which various simple obscure people brought the honey of their knowledge and thoughts on life, generously enriching my character with their own experience. Often this honey was dirty and bitter, but every scrap of knowledge was honey all the same.

In the monotony of everyday existence grief comes as a holiday, and a fire is an entertainment. A scratch embellishes an empty face.

Sometimes when I recall the abominations of that barbarous Russian life I question whether they are worth dwelling on. But on further consideration I am convinced that they demand being exposed, for they are the vicious tenacious truth, which has not been exterminated to this very day. They represent a truth which must be exposed to its roots and torn out of our grim and shameful life - torn out of the very soul and memory of man. But there is another, more positive reason impelling me to describe such horrors. In spite of their repulsiveness and they way in which they mutilated what would otherwise be fine natures, the Russian is sufficiently young and wholesome in spirit to abolish such things and he will surely do so. Our life is amazing not only for the vigorous scum of bestiality with which it is overgrown, but also for the bright and wholesome creative forces gleaming beneath. And the influence of good is growing, giving promise that our people will at last awaken to a life full of beauty and bright humanity.

...the more a human creature has tasted of bitter things the more it hungers after the sweet things of life. And we, wrapped round in rags of our virtues, and regarding others through the mist of our self-sufficiency, and persuaded of our universal impeccability, do not understand this.

the mother again remarked the simplicity and calmness of their relation to each other. it was hard for her to get used to it. no kissing, no affictionate words passed between them but they behaved so sincerely, so amicably and so solicitously toward each other. in the life she had been accustomed to, people kissed a great deal and uttered many sentimental words, but always bit at one another like hungry dogs.

They destroy lives with work. What for? They rob men of their lives. What for, I ask? My master—I lost my life in the textile mill of Nefidov—my master presented one prima donna with a golden wash basin. Every one of her toilet articles was gold. That basin holds my life-blood, my very life. That's for what my life went! A man killed me with work in order to comfort his mistress with my blood. He bought her a gold wash basin with my blood.

Those——"—here he flung out a terrible oath—"those people don't know what their blind hands are sowing. They will know when our power is complete and we begin to mow down their cursed grass. They'll know it then!

We must endure, Alyosha." That was the only thing she could say in response to my accounts of the ugliness and dreariness of life, of the suffering of the people — of everything against which I protested so vehemently. I was not made for endurance, and if occasionally I exhibited this virtue of cattle, wood, and stone, I did so only to test myself, to try my strength and my stability. Sometimes young people, in the foolishness of immaturity, or in envy of the strength of their elders, strive, even successfully, to lift weights that overtax their bones and muscles; in their vanity they attempt to cross themselves with two-pood weights, like mature athletes. I too did this, in the literal and figurative sense, physically and spiritually, and only good fortune kept me from injuring myself fatally or crippling myself for life. For nothing cripples a person so dreadfully as endurance, as a humble submission to the forces of circumstance.

we people at the bottom feel everything; but it is hard for us to speak out our hearts. our thoughts float about in us. we are ashamed because, although we understand, we are not able to express them; an often from shame we are angry at our thoughts, and at those who inspire them. we drive them away from ourselves