#russian

All we know is that, at times, fighting the Russians, we had to remove the piles of enemy bodies from before our trenches, so as to get a clear field of fire against new waves of assault. ↗

— Paul von Hindenburg

#assault #before #bodies #clear #enemy

First, relax. ... And my second helpful hint is that you should not try to memorize anything you read in this book. ... My two words of advice are exemplified in what I call the Russian Novel Phenomenon. Every reader must have experienced that depressing moment about fifty pages into a Russian novel when we realize that we have lost track of all the characters, the variety of names by which they are known, their family relationships and relative ranks in the civil service. At this point we can give in to our anxiety, and start again to read more carefully, trying to memorize all the details on the offchance that some may prove to be important. If such a course is followed, the second reading is almost certain to be more incomprehensible than the first. The probable result: one Russian novel lost forever. But there is another alternative: to read faster, to push ahead, to make sense of what we can and to enjoy whatever we make sense of. And suddenly the book becomes readable, the story makes sense, and we find that we can remember all the important characters and events simply because we know what is important. Any re-reading we then have to do is bound to make sense, because at least we comprehend what is going on and what we are looking for. ↗

— Frank Smith

#relax #russian-novel-phenomenon #family

Scratch a Russian, and you'll find a peasant. ↗

— Milla Jovovich

#peasant #russian #scratch #you

The people have already determined Chechnya's status at the referendum - it is a unit of the Russian Federation. Its political status is not to be discussed any more. ↗

— Akhmad Kadyrov

#any #chechnya #determined #discussed #federation

What Americans can't face is that one of the reasons that the Russians and the Chinese were so impressed with us during the Cold War was the fact that Nixon and Kissinger went on bombing despite public reaction. ↗

— Robert D. Kaplan

#chinese #cold #cold war #despite #during

I remember in 1978 meeting two Ugandan captains in the hotel talking Russian. They had been educated in Moscow and since they came from different Ugandan peoples, it was the only way they could understand one another. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#been #came #captains #could #different

In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#between #citizens #complicated #experience #fabric

Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#british #came #colonial #communities #correspondents

The tradition of Russian literature is also an eastern tradition of learning poetry and prose by heart. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#eastern #heart #learning #literature #poetry

There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God. ↗

— Ryszard Kapuscinski

#first #god #oppressive #orthodox #positively