Happy Birthday, Maxim

Алексей Максимович Пешков - Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, best known as Maxim Gorky (the Bitter), was born today in Nizhny Novgorod - once called Gorky after him - in 1868.

День - это маленькая жизнь, и надо прожить ее так, будто ты должен умереть сейчас, а тебе неожиданно подарили еще сутки. (A day is a small life, and it must be lived as though you were meant to die right now, but you've unexpectedly been given another 24 hours.)

Лишь бы люди начали думать, до правды они всегда додумаются. (If only people start thinking, they'll always get to the truth.)

Когда труд - удовольствие, жизнь - хороша! Когда труд - обязанность, жизнь - рабство! (When work is a pleasure, then life is wonderful! When work is an obligation, then life is slavery!)

In these pictures he's at Yasnaya Polyana with Tolstoy in 1900 (above), then in Yalta with Anton Chekhov in the same year, and then with Voroshilov and Stalin in 1931... Yeah. A complicated guy, Maxim Gorky.

Here is Gorky in Russian and here in English.