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Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

Ivan Turgenev

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 TURGENEV

Happiness Myself Place Room Stay Water
Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Fear Love Myself Thinking Togetherness
Every man’s happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.
IVAN TURGENEV

Built Happiness Man
Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Deep Encounter Joke New
It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
IVAN TURGENEV

Art Romanticism Stupidity
A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.
IVAN TURGENEV

Branch Himself Son Willing
I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
IVAN TURGENEV

Heaven Myself
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Difficult Feeling Home Kind Religious Survive Training
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
IVAN TURGENEV

Ego Feeling Goodness Strength
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Description Experience Feeling Myself Repeat
That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
IVAN TURGENEV

Bored Children Parents
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
Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
IVAN TURGENEV

Essence Life Lying Oneself
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t adopt any one’s ideas; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV

Adopt Ideas Myself Opinion
The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
IVAN TURGENEV

Children Indecision People Word
We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
IVAN TURGENEV

Fools Happiness Monster Ourselves Young
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Acknowledgement Care Crush Human Logic Nature Recognition
In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
IVAN TURGENEV

Beginning Love Myself
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Friendly Live People Soul Yourself
Significance is sweet.
IVAN TURGENEV

One Liner Sweet
It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
IVAN TURGENEV

Average Herself Mediocre Vulgar
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
IVAN TURGENEV

Beginning Moments Patience Wait
Don’t force me into saying what I don’t want to say, and what I won’t say.
IVAN TURGENEV

Force Myself Talk
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
IVAN TURGENEV

Desire Expectation Genuine Holy Sympathy
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

Dreams Oneself Soar Start Tired
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 TURGENEV

Hands Independent Life Yourself
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

Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

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Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

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