Eugene Onegin quotes

He wrote and spoke, so all allowed, In the French language perfectly, Danced the mazurka gracefully, Without the least constraint he bowed.

What more’s required? The world replies, He is a charming youth and wise.

We all of us of education A something somehow have obtained, Thus, praised be God! a reputation With us is easily attained.

The most industrious man alive May yet be studious of his nails; What boots it with the age to strive?

Custom the despot soon prevails.

A new Kavèrine Eugene mine, Dreading the world’s remarks malign, Was that which we are wont to call A fop, in dress pedantical.

and cease to ring their praise For ever with thy tattling lyre, The proud ones are not worth the fire Of passion they so often raise.

The words and looks of charmers sweet Are oft deceptive⁠—like their feet.

Where is Onegin? Half asleep, Straight from the ball to bed he goes, Whilst Petersburg from slumber deep The drum already doth arouse. The shopman and the pedlar rise And to the Bourse the cabman plies;

I was incensed and he was sad. Both were of passion satiate And both of dull existence tired, Extinct the flame which once had fired; Both were expectant of the hate With which blind Fortune oft betrays The very morning of our days.

He who hath lived and living, thinks, Must e’en despise his kind at last; He who hath suffered ofttimes shrinks From shades of the relentless past.

No fond illusions live to soothe, But memory like a serpent’s tooth With late repentance gnaws and stings. All this in many cases brings A charm with it in conversation.

They met. Earth, water, prose and verse, Or ice and flame, are not diverse If they were similar in aught. At first such contradictions wrought Mutual repulsion and ennui, But grown familiar side by side On horseback every day they ride— Inseparable soon they be.

Thus oft⁠—this I myself confess⁠— Men become friends from idleness.

But even thus not now-a-days! In spite of common sense we’re wont As ciphers others to appraise, Ourselves as unities to count; And like Napoleons each of us A million bipeds reckons thus One instrument for his own use— Feeling is silly, dangerous.

She struggled hard at first thus pent, Night separated from her spouse, Then became busy with the house, First reconciled and then content;

Habit was given us in distress By Heaven in lieu of happiness.

Habit alleviates the grief Inseparable from our lot; This great discovery relief And consolation soon begot. And then she soon ’twixt work and leisure Found out the secret how at pleasure To dominate her worthy lord, And harmony was soon restored.

Who knows? with love’s consuming flame Perchance you also soon may burn, Then to some gallant in your turn Will be ascribed by treacherous Fame The triumph of a conquest new.

The God of Love is after you!

A coquette loves by calculation, Tattiana’s love was quite sincere, A love which knew no limitation, Even as the love of children dear. She did not think “procrastination Enhances love in estimation And thus secures the prey we seek.

Who knows? with love’s consuming flame Perchance you also soon may burn, Then to some gallant in your turn Will be ascribed by treacherous Fame The triumph of a conquest new. The God of Love is after you!

A coquette loves by calculation, Tattiana’s love was quite sincere, A love which knew no limitation, Even as the love of children dear.

She did not think “procrastination Enhances love in estimation And thus secures the prey we seek.

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What can be drearier than the house, Wherein the miserable wife Deplores a most unworthy spouse And leads a solitary life?

The tiresome man, her value knowing, Yet curses on his fate bestowing, Is full of frigid jealousy, Mute, solemn, frowning gloomily. Such am I. This did ye expect, When in simplicity ye wrote Your innocent and charming note With so much warmth and intellect?

His friends and also enemies (One and the same thing it may be) Esteemed him much as the world goes. Yes! every one must have his foes, But Lord! from friends deliver me!

The deuce take friends, my friends, amends I’ve had to make for having friends!

But how? Quite so.

Who words and actions will adjust To standards in which we believe? Oh! who is not calumnious? Who labours hard to humour us? To whom are our misfortunes grief And who is not a tiresome thief? My venerated reader, oh!

Cease the pursuit of shadows vain, Spare yourself unavailing pain And all your love on self bestow; A worthy object ’tis, and well I know there’s none more amiable.

But from the interview what flowed? Alas! It is not hard to guess. The insensate fire of love still glowed Nor discontinued to distress A spirit which for sorrow yearned. Tattiana more than ever burned With hopeless passion:

Alas! It is not hard to guess. The insensate fire of love still glowed Nor discontinued to distress A spirit which for sorrow yearned. Tattiana more than ever burned With hopeless passion: from her bed Sweet slumber winged its way and fled.

Her health, life’s sweetness and its bloom, Her smile and maidenly repose, All vanished as an echo goes.

Across her youth a shade had come, As when the tempest’s veil is drawn Across the smiling face of dawn.

Merry eves! When thoughtless youth whom nothing grieves, Before whose inexperienced sight Life lies extended, vast and bright, To peer into the future tries. Old age through spectacles too peers, Although the destined coffin nears, Having lost all in life we prize. It matters not.

Hope e’en to these With childlike lisp will lie to please.

Tattiana gazed with curious eye On melted wax in water poured; The clue unto some mystery She deemed its outline might afford. Rings from a dish of water full In order due the maidens pull;

That our desires which noblest seemed, The purest of the dreams we dreamed, Have one by one all withered grown Like rotten leaves by Autumn strown—

’Tis fearful to anticipate Nought but of dinners a long row, To look on life as on a show, Eternally to imitate The seemly crowd, partaking nought Its passions and its modes of thought.

The butt of scandal having been, ’Tis dreadful—ye agree, I hope— To pass with reasonable men For a fictitious misanthrope, A visionary mortified, Or monster of Satanic pride, Or e’en the “Demon” of my strain.

But my Onegin the whole eve Within his mind Tattiana bore, Not the young timid maid, believe, Enamoured, simple-minded, poor, But the indifferent princess, Divinity without access Of the imperial Neva’s shore.

O Men, how very like ye are To Eve the universal mother, Possession hath no power to please, The serpent to unlawful trees Aye bids ye in some way or other⁠— Unless forbidden fruit we eat, Our paradise is no more sweet.

Ah! how Tattiana was transformed, How thoroughly her part she took! How soon to habits she conformed Which crushing dignity must brook! Who would the maiden innocent In the unmoved, magnificent Autocrat of the drawing-room seek? And he had made her heart beat quick!