Famous Ukrainians

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

—Nikolai Gogol

On the unforgettable day of my confirmation, I told myself that they would not make a soldier out of me. They didn’t. Not only have I not studied a single gun technique deeply, even superficially. And it flatters my ego. Childishness — and nothing more.

—Taras Shevchenko

Nice privacy! Nothing in life can be sweeter, more charming than solitude, especially in the face of the smiling, blossoming beauty of Mother Nature. Under its sweet magical charm, a person involuntarily plunges into himself and sees God on earth, as the poet says.

—Taras Shevchenko

There is such a breed of people – there is so much anger in them that they are ready to slaughter themselves.

—Taras Shevchenko

Evil people do not look into children’s eyes for fear of being poisoned by their purity.

—Taras Shevchenko

Money comes and goes, happiness is not in them. The most important thing in the world will always be the people who were with you in the most difficult times.

—Taras Shevchenko

There are no good friends, no bad friends, there are only people you want to be with, who you need to be with, and who have found a place in your heart.

—Taras Shevchenko

A man is like the Moon, he also has a dark side that he never shows to anyone.

—Taras Shevchenko

Stay away from those small people who want to deprive you of your ambitions. Instead, befriend great people.

—Taras Shevchenko

The evening was quiet and bright. A long strip of sea blackened on the horizon, and on its shore the rocks burned in the reddish light, and on one of the rocks the white walls of the second battery and the entire fortification glistened. I admired my seven-year prison.

—Taras Shevchenko

We have the marvelous gift of making everything insignificant.

—Nikolai Gogol

There are passions that it is not for man to choose.

—Nikolai Gogol

The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards.

—Nikolai Gogol

Amazing! A person resents the evil that comes from outside, from others, something that he cannot affect, but does not fight his own personal evil that is in his power to control.

—Taras Shevchenko

To educate a person intellectually, without raising him morally, means to grow a threat to society.

—Taras Shevchenko

Despite my sincere love for the beautiful in art and in nature, I feel an irresistible antipathy to philosophies and aesthetics.

—Taras Shevchenko

When evil is committed, a person is afraid that people will know about it, he can still find a way to good. When, having done good, a person tries to make people know about it, he gives rise to evil.

—Taras Shevchenko

A man who does evil is an enemy to himself: after all, he himself will taste the fruits of his evil.

—Taras Shevchenko

Evil people have no songs.

—Taras Shevchenko

Very smart people are not evil. Evilness a priori implies limitation and stupidity.

—Taras Shevchenko

A bad man does and will continue to do evil no matter what.

—Taras Shevchenko

Maybe good and evil have the same face. It all depends on when we encounter them on our path.

—Taras Shevchenko

A stupid person does not become good, and a good person can easily become bad.

—Taras Shevchenko

What could be more harmful than a person who has knowledge of the most complex sciences, but does not have a good heart? He will use all his knowledge for evil.

—Taras Shevchenko

Everything that does not suit us in others allows us to understand ourselves.

—Taras Shevchenko

However stupid a fools words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.

—Nikolai Gogol

From the anger aimed at people, as a rule, the evildoer himself suffers.

—Taras Shevchenko

I live, I study. I don’t bow to anyone and I don’t fear anyone but God. It is a great happiness to be a free person.

—Taras Shevchenko