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 TURGENEVWhat’s important is that twice two is four and all the rest’s nonsense.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
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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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Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
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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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Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t adopt any one’s ideas; I have my own.
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Everyone needs help from everyone else.
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If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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Love isn’t actually a feeling at all–it’s an illness, a certain condition of body and soul…. Usually it takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will–just like cholera or a fever.
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Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
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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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We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
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Behind me there are already so many memories Lots of memories, but no point in remembering them, and ahead of me a long, long road with nothing to aim for I just don’t want to go along it.
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You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.
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Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
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Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there’ll come a time when you’ll start asking just for a crust.
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It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
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The temerity to believe in nothing.
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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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Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this – Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.
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So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me – a long, long road without a goal.
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I’m incapable of describing the feeling with which I left. I wouldn’t want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I’d never experienced it.
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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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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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The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
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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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We sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
IVAN TURGENEV