I was as happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room for ever, have never left that place.
IVAN TURGENEVCircumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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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Every man’s happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.
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Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
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It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
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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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I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
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A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
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Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
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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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That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
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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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Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
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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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The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
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We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
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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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In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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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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Significance is sweet.
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It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
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If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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Don’t force me into saying what I don’t want to say, and what I won’t say.
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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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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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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 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