No matter how often you knock at nature’s door, she won’t answer in words you can understand–for Nature is dumb. She’ll vibrate and moan like a violin, but you mustn’t expect a song.
IVAN TURGENEVNature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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 -
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
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Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
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I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.
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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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It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
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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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
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Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
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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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The past was a dream wasn’t it? And who ever remembers dreams?
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Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this – Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.
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I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.
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Illness isn’t the only thing that spoils the appetite.
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We sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
IVAN TURGENEV