Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be

Nikolai Gogol, the Russian master of satire and sorrow, gave this stern counsel: “Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you’ll be left without bread and without views.” In this sharp and ironic truth, he warns against the vanity of pursuing views—the fleeting approval of others, the applause of the crowd, the glory of fashion. For such pursuits are smoke: they cannot sustain the body, nor nourish the soul. When a man builds his life upon appearances, he finds himself without substance, left with neither sustenance nor the recognition he sought.

The heart of his wisdom is the difference between bread and views. Bread is life itself—work, stability, and truth. Views are shadows, illusions of honor, or fleeting popularity. To abandon bread in pursuit of views is to forsake what is essential for what is empty. Gogol, with his biting wit, reminds us that those who seek only admiration will find themselves hungry, not only in body but in spirit, stripped of both dignity and survival.

History shows us the pattern. In the final days of the French court at Versailles, nobles chased after appearance—clothes, balls, the favor of fashion—while the people starved outside their gates. They chased views, but lost even bread, and in time their vanity brought their downfall at the hands of revolution. Their gilded mirrors could not save them from the hunger of reality.

So too in the lives of many artists and thinkers who abandoned their craft for the fleeting tastes of the crowd. Some, once celebrated, faded into obscurity because they wrote not truth but flattery. Others, like Dostoevsky, who suffered poverty and exile, clung to the bread of truth, writing what burned in their souls rather than what won immediate applause. His words endure, while the flatterers are forgotten. Thus, those who seek bread in truth gain even the views of posterity; but those who seek views lose both.

O children of tomorrow, take Gogol’s warning into your hearts: do not squander your life chasing the winds of approval. Seek bread, the nourishment of truth, labor, and integrity. If recognition comes, let it come as fruit, not as the root. For he who pursues only views shall be left empty-handed, while he who works for bread shall in time possess both bread and honor. Remember always: fame is fleeting, but sustenance and truth endure.