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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

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

Circumstance Force Punishment Road
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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Equality Miracle Person Prayer
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

Death Goodness Leaving Time Water
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
IVAN TURGENEV

Bird Fairy Tale Feed
It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
IVAN TURGENEV

Art Romanticism Stupidity
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

Goal Memories Myself Point Remember Road
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Yourself
So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me – a long, long road without a goal.
IVAN TURGENEV

Goal Memories Myself Worth
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
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
That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.
IVAN TURGENEV

Better Existence Poetry Talk Truth
It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
IVAN TURGENEV

Average Herself Mediocre Vulgar
What a magnificent body, how I should like to see it on the dissecting table.
IVAN TURGENEV

Body Myself Table
I never started from ideas but always from character.
IVAN TURGENEV

Character Ideas Myself Start
I share no man’s opinions; I have my own.
IVAN TURGENEV

Man Myself Opinion Share
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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