Mikhail Leonovich Gasparov. April 13 1935 - November 7 2005. Russian literary scholar and philologist, historian of ancient literature and Russian poetry, translator. RAS academician.
Quotes:
1. Parents teach their children the values of their lives like the brass prepares troops for yesterday's wars.
2. What appears vulgar to a well-versed person can be a revelation to a uninformed one.
3. If you can’t rely on a man, it simply means that he won’t support you – you support him.
4. What is conscience and what is honor? Both determine the choice of our acts, yet honor questions one “what would our fathers have thought of that” and conscience questions one “what will our children think of that”.
5. If anything, history still teaches us pessimism in the sense that nothing can be learned from the experience of predecessors, but it also instills optimism, because, despite that, mankind still exists.
6. In my opinion, the history has ventured far away but over a very uniform terrain.
7. In Crete, when the enemy is cursed, they wish him bad habits.
8. Destiny leads those who want it and drags those who resist it.
9. Natural sciences keep the mankind from perishing of hunger, humanities keep the mankind from perishing by self-extermination.
10. Being true to oneself is usually another word for inertia. Let’s not make a cult out of it.
