“[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!”Nikolai Gogol book Dead SoulsVol. 1, ch. 2 Dead Souls (1842)
“And ruined is the Cossack! He is lost for all the chivalry of the Cossacks! He will see Zaporozhye no more; nor his father's farms, nor the church of God. Ukraine will see no more the bravest of the sons who undertook to defend her. Old Taras will tear the gray hair from his head and curse the day and hour when he begot such a son to shame him.”Nikolai Gogol "Taras Bulba" (1835)
“[P]eople think that the human brain is in the head. Nothing of the sort; it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea.”Nikolai Gogol book Diary of a MadmanDiary of a Madman (1835)
“[Final lines] mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place.Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?”Nikolai Gogol book Diary of a MadmanDiary of a Madman (1835)