Inspirational Quotes by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Inspirational Quotations by Mikhail Bulgakov (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a Russian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer best known for his humor and sharp satire. His talent for portraying the grotesque, the comic, and the eccentric made him one of the best-loved authors in the former Soviet Union.

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, of a middle-class intellectual family, Bulgakov graduated in medicine from the University of Kyiv but left his medical career for journalism. His initial literary outputs were short stories, such as ‘The Fatal Eggs’ and ‘Devilry,’ in which he blended the real world and science fantasy to facilitate social and moral satire.

Working with the Moscow Art Theatre, Bulgakov adapted part of his novel Belaya Gvardiya (1925; The White Guard, 1971) for the stage in 1926. His political points of view in that play, and in other plays like Beg (1928, ‘The Flight,’) attracted much condemnation.

Bulgakov gained success with the play The Cabal of Hypocrites (1929) about Molière, on whom he also authored an imaginative biography. Bulgakov described his tribulations with the theatre in Teatral’nyi Roman (1965; Black Snow, a Theatrical Novel, 1967.) His magnum opus is the fantasy novel Master i Margarita (1966; The Master and Margarita, 1967.)

Bulgakov wrote over 20 plays, but some remain missing. Works such as Adam i Eva (Adam and Eve, written 1931) and Blazhenstvo (‘Bliss,’ written 1934) remain unpublished. His last play, based on Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, was produced posthumously in 1941.

Bulgakov died in obscurity, but his retrospective reputation has flourished. His works are seen as reflecting the absurdities of society under Stalinism.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mikhail Bulgakov

Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

One can find time for everything if one is never in a hurry.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

Kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You’ll get nowhere with an animal if you use terror, no matter what its level of development may be. That I have maintained, do maintain and always will maintain. People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour—white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

No one’s fate is of any interest to you except your own.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You’re asked an unexpected question, you don’t even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he’s sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there’s the trick!
—Mikhail Bulgakov

Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

I suppose that in no educational institution can one become an educated person.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

There is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason.
—Mikhail Bulgakov

What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?
—Mikhail Bulgakov