Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
IVAN TURGENEVNo 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.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
IVAN TURGENEV -
The past was a dream wasn’t it? And who ever remembers dreams?
IVAN TURGENEV -
So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me – a long, long road without a goal.
IVAN TURGENEV -
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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?
IVAN TURGENEV -
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I never started from ideas but always from character.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
IVAN TURGENEV -
The temerity to believe in nothing.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don’t notice whether it’s passing quickly or slowly.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Every man’s happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.
IVAN TURGENEV -
In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country’s fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!
IVAN TURGENEV