It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
IVAN TURGENEVThat 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.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
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Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
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We sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
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I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
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Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
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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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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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Nature creates while destroying, and doesn’t care whether it creates or destroys as long as life isn’t extinguished, as long as death doesn’t lose its rights.
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In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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Everyone needs help from everyone else.
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I’ve become convinced that every person should treat himself strictly and even rudely and distrustfully; it’s difficult to tame the beast in oneself.
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I’m through with Tolstoy. He has ceased to exist for me…. If I eat a bowl of soup and like it, I know by that fact alone and with absolute certainty that Tolstoy will find it bad, and vice versa.
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I never started from ideas but always from character.
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Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel.
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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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Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
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Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.
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What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
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That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
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I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.
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I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.
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People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.
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I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
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If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
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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.
IVAN TURGENEV