What great people said out about the Russian language

Ivan Turgenev ('The Russian Tongue' poem in prose):

“In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, thou alone art my stay and support, mighty, true, free Russian speech! But, for thee, how not fall into despair, seeing all that is done at home? But, who can think that such a tongue is not the gift of a great people!”

Ivan Turgenev (Concerning ‘Fathers and Sons’):

“Take care of our language, our beautiful Russian language, this treasure, this property handed down to us by our predecessors.<…>Treat this mighty weapon with respect; in the hands of the skillful, it’s able to perform miracles!” 

Nikolai Gogol (‘Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends’)

“You will marvel at the jewels in our language: Its sonority is already a gift; everything is grained and hard as pearls and, really, the name is still more jewel-like than the thing itself.” 

Nikolai Gogol (‘Dead Souls’):

“There is no word so perk and quick, which bursts from the heart with such spontaneity, which seethes and bubbles with such vitality, as the aptly spoken Russian word.”

Alexander Pushkin (‘About Mr. Lemonte’s preface to the translation of I. A. Krylov’s fables’):

“As material for literature, the Slavo-Russian language has an indisputable superiority over all European languages. Its fate was extremely happy. In the 11th century, the Ancient Greek language suddenly opened up to it its lexicon, its treasure trove of harmony and presented it with the laws of its carefully considered grammar, its beautiful turns of phrase, its majestic flow of speech; in a word, it adopted it, thus saving it from the slow improvements of time. Already sonorous and expressive in itself, from then on it acquires flexibility and correctness.”

Konstantin Paustovsky (‘The Golden Rose’):

“Many Russian words radiate poetry in the same way as precious stones radiate a mysterious glow.”

Mikhail Lomonosov (‘The Russian Grammar’):

“Charles V, the Roman Emperor, used to say that one should speak Spanish with God, French with friends, German with enemies and Italian with the female sex. But, if he had been skilled in Russian, he would, of course, have added that one could speak it with all of them, for he would have found in it the magnificence of Spanish, the vivacity of French, the strength of German, the delicacy of Italian and, in addition, the richness and conciseness of Greek and Latin…

Maxim Gorky (‘How I Learned to Write’):

“The Russian language is inexhaustibly rich and is being enriched with astonishing speed.”

Vissarion Belinsky (A Voice in Defense of the 'A Voice in Defense of the Russian Language'):

“The Russian language is extremely rich, flexible and picturesque for expressing simple, natural concepts. In the Russian language, there are sometimes up to ten or more verbs of the same root, but different aspects to express various shades of the same action.”

Alexander Herzen (‘Past and Thoughts’):

“The main character of our language consists in the extreme ease with which everything is expressed in it – abstract thoughts, inner lyrical feelings, 'life's scurrying mouse', a cry of indignation, sparkling frolic and overwhelming passion.”