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 TURGENEVLove 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.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me – a long, long road without a goal.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 -
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 -
I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.
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 never started from ideas but always from character.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
IVAN TURGENEV -
In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
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 -
However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
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 -
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
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 -
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 -
I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.
IVAN TURGENEV