A Gentleman in Moscow

All poetry is a call to action.

All poetry is a call to action

COUNT ALEXANDER ILYICH ROSTOV

Given Russia’s long, heartless winters, its familiarity with famine, its rough sense of justice, and so on, and so on, it was perfectly natural for its gentry to adopt an act of definitive violence as the means of resolving disputes.

Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate, and our opinions evolve—if not glacially, then at least gradually.

Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds.

“Merci beaucoup.”
“Je vous en prie.”

For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”

For if serenity should be a hallmark of maturity, then impetuousness should be a hallmark of youth.

Settle a tribe of them in a desert and they will wrap themselves in cotton, sleep in tents, and travel on the backs of camels; settle them in the Arctic and they will wrap themselves in sealskin, sleep in igloos, and travel by dog-drawn sled.