So long as one’s just dreaming about what to do, one can soar like an eagle and move mountains, it seems, but as soon as one starts doing it one gets worn out and tired.
IVAN TURGENEVWhatever 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.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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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What’s important is that twice two is four and all the rest’s nonsense.
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Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
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The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
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In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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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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I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.
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Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
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What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.
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Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
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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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Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.
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The past was a dream wasn’t it? And who ever remembers dreams?
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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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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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Significance is sweet.
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I never started from ideas but always from character.
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Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
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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 sorts of difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.
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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.
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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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The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
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Illness isn’t the only thing that spoils the appetite.
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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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If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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Every man’s happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.
IVAN TURGENEV