Live for a Century - Learn for a Century

Kozma Petrovich Prutkov — a literary mask under which Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers performed in the 1850s-1860s. They composed a biography and developed the character of a fictional author — supposedly a civil servant and at the same time a romantic poet and writer, who mocked intellectual stagnation and political "political correctness". The image of Prutkov was crafted so carefully that many readers believed that such a writer actually existed. Kozma Prutkov is attributed with famous catchphrases, some of which are now considered proverbs — "Live for a century - learn for a century!", "If you want to be happy, be so", "What we have we do not cherish; having lost — we cry" and many others. His aphorisms, plays, and poems expose folly under the guise of common sense, and Prutkov's satire remains relevant to this day.