Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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Don't force me into saying what I don't want to say, and what I won't say.
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In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly obedient to its own laws, it doesn't know art, just as it doesn't know freedom, just as it doesn't know goodness.
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A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.
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I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.
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The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they've suddenly become nihilists.
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The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
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That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.
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However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
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The past was a dream wasn't it? And who ever remembers dreams?
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A person who gets angry at his own illness is sure to overcome it.
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Only one thing bothered me: at this very moment, as they say, of inexplicable bliss there would be a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach and my abdomen would be assailed by a melancholy, cold shivering. In the end I couldn't abide such happiness and ran away.
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To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
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In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we're barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.
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Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love- where are you?
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I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
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Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don't have far to go, either.
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Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
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Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
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What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.
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There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
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There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another.
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Every man's happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.
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All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.