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.
IVAN TURGENEVOne may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
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 -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t adopt any one’s ideas; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
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 -
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.
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 -
Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
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 -
The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
IVAN TURGENEV -
What’s important is that twice two is four and all the rest’s nonsense.
IVAN TURGENEV






