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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 Turgenev

What did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?
IVAN TURGENEV

Expectation Future Hope Instant Mourn Oneself Rise
Everyone needs help from everyone else.
IVAN TURGENEV

Company Help Need Support
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Character Fate Necessary People Responsibility Willing
We sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
IVAN TURGENEV

Reach Stars
What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.
IVAN TURGENEV

Body Myself Table
What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
IVAN TURGENEV

Degrade Essence Life Terrible
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

Difficult Human Live Moments Open Spoil
I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
IVAN TURGENEV

Achievement Flower Love Myself Production
I never started from ideas but always from character.
IVAN TURGENEV

Character Ideas Myself Start
Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
IVAN TURGENEV

God Greatness Mathematics
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

Better Existence Poetry Talk Truth
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

Convince Difficult Oneself Person Treat
I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.
IVAN TURGENEV

Feeling Live Myself Time
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

Autocracy Greatness Pain Reason Source Sweet
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Childhood Cultivation Life Ourselves Past Personality Task
Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don’t have far to go, either.
IVAN TURGENEV

Angry Failure Far Jealous Road Strength

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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