Significance is sweet.
IVAN TURGENEVWhat 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?
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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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What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
IVAN TURGENEV -
Love 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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
IVAN TURGENEV -
However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
IVAN TURGENEV -
He was the soul of politeness to everyone — to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.
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 -
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 -
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 -
I was afraid of looking into my heart…afraid of thinking seriously about anything…I did not want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to admit to myself that I was not loved.
IVAN TURGENEV -
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
IVAN TURGENEV -
That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
IVAN TURGENEV