Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
IVAN TURGENEVSo many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me – a long, long road without a goal.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 TURGENEV -
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
IVAN TURGENEV -
Ah, but in time the heat of noontide passes, and to it there succeed nightfall and dusk, with a return to the quiet fold where for the weary an the heavy-laden there waits sleep, sweet sleep.
IVAN TURGENEV -
A person who gets angry at his own illness is sure to overcome it.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like. But i do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Everyone needs help from everyone else.
IVAN TURGENEV -
He was the soul of politeness to everyone — to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
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 -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
IVAN TURGENEV -
What’s important is that twice two is four and all the rest’s nonsense.
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 -
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 -
The temerity to believe in nothing.
IVAN TURGENEV