No matter how often you knock at nature’s door, she won’t answer in words you can understand–for Nature is dumb. She’ll vibrate and moan like a violin, but you mustn’t expect a song.
IVAN TURGENEVThe word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
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Each individual is more or less dimly aware of his significance, is aware that he’s something innately superior, something eternal–and lives, is obligated to live, in the moment and for the moment.
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I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.
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Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
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Take what you can yourself, and don’t let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.
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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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One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
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In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
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I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
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I was afraid of looking into my heart…afraid of thinking seriously about anything…I did not want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to admit to myself that I was not loved.
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Significance is sweet.
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Illness isn’t the only thing that spoils the appetite.
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He was the soul of politeness to everyone — to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.
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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.
IVAN TURGENEV