“I was involuntarily struck by the aptitude which the Russian displays for accommodating himself to the customs of the people in whose midst he happens to be living. I know not whether this mental quality is deserving of censure or commendation, but it proves the incredible pliancy of his mind and the presence of that clear common sense which pardons evil wherever it sees that evil is inevitable or impossible of annihilation.”
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)
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Mikhail Lermontov 34
Russian writer, poet and painter 1814–1841Related quotes
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
“See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good.”
Testimony XXIV in Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (1886) edited by Allen Thorndike Rice
Context: I saw Mr. Lincoln a number of times during the canvass for his second election. The characteristic which struck me most was his superabundance of common sense. His power of managing men, of deciding and avoiding difficult questions, surpassed that of any man I ever met. A keen insight of human nature had been cultivated by the trials and struggles of his early life. He knew the people and how to reach them better than any man of his time. I heard him tell a great many stories, many of which would not do exactly for the drawing-room; but for the person he wished to reach, and the object he desired to accomplish with the individual, the story did more than any argument could have done.
“Julian said the world was evil and horrible - remember? But then he proved himself that it wasn't”
Source: The Kill
The Key to Theosophy (1889)