How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
It's true, our work is noble, it's clean everywhere, as you never see it in the provincial government: the tables are mahogany, and the superiors address each formally. Yes, I confess, if it weren't for the nobility of the work, I'd long since have quit the department. (1.1)
To begin with, tables being mahogany and the superiors addressing each other formally didn't really make the work more noble and clean. It just made it seem noble and clean. But then, mistaking style for substance is a classic sign of foolishness.
And Poprishchin's comment that he would have long since quit the department if it weren't for the nobility of the work is also ridiculous. He doesn't have any money. What would he have rather done, eat cabbage and work in some sooty workshop?
Quote #2
Our director must be a very intelligent man. His whole study is filled with bookcases. I read the titles of some of the books: it's all learning, such learning as our kinds can't even come close to: all in French, or in German. And to look at his face: pah, such importance shines in his eyes! (2.1)
Um, the director is probably not that intelligent. If we remember what Medji the dog has to say about the director—"[Papa] is a very strange man. He's silent most of the time. Speaks very rarely" (8.12)—he's probably just an ambitious but not exceptionally bright man. He might have just put some foreign books in his office to seem smart. So that makes Poprishchin seem doubly foolish and naïve for thinking the director is brilliant. And it's not like Poprishchin has ever talked to the man and actually found out whether he is smart or not.
(Disturbing insight: Shmoop has just taken a dog's word over Poprishchin's.)
Quote #3
I read the little Bee. What fools these Frenchmen are! So, what is it they want? By God, I'd take the lot of them and give them a good birching! I also read a very pleasant portrayal of a ball there, described by a Kursk landowner. Kursk landowners are good writers. (2.1)
The little Bee, aka The Northern Bee, was a popular political and literary magazine that Gogol thought was a sign of bad taste. Here, Poprishchin doesn't just read this magazine, but to add insult to injury (or foolishness to more foolishness), he makes really idiotic comments about what he reads. Give the French a good birching? Kursk landowners are good writers? It's actually really funny.