black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
IVAN TURGENEV

Answer Door Nature Word
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
Each individual is more or less dimly aware of his significance, is aware that he’s something innately superior, something eternal–and lives, is obligated to live, in the moment and for the moment.
IVAN TURGENEV

Aware Forever Moments Obligation Spiritual
What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.
IVAN TURGENEV

Body Myself Table
I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
IVAN TURGENEV

Actor Flirt Heart Nature
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Yourself
Ah, but in time the heat of noontide passes, and to it there succeed nightfall and dusk, with a return to the quiet fold where for the weary an the heavy-laden there waits sleep, sweet sleep.
IVAN TURGENEV

Heat heavy Pass Return Sleep Time Wait
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. “I don’t adopt any one’s ideas; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV

Adopt Ideas Myself Opinion
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

Beginning Detail Fate Guide Hands Harsh Ourselves
Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Deep Encounter Joke New
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
Belonging to oneself–the whole essence of life lies in that.
IVAN TURGENEV

Essence Life Lying Oneself
In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.
IVAN TURGENEV

Beginning Love Myself
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
What’s important is that twice two is four and all the rest’s nonsense.
IVAN TURGENEV

Important Stupidity
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

Human Known Notice Pass Quick Time

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ivan Turgenev Quotes