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 TURGENEVI’m through with Tolstoy. He has ceased to exist for me…. If I eat a bowl of soup and like it, I know by that fact alone and with absolute certainty that Tolstoy will find it bad, and vice versa.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
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I never started from ideas but always from character.
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Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love- where are you?
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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.
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However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
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Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
IVAN TURGENEV -
Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
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 -
Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
IVAN TURGENEV -
I’m through with Tolstoy. He has ceased to exist for me…. If I eat a bowl of soup and like it, I know by that fact alone and with absolute certainty that Tolstoy will find it bad, and vice versa.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I’ve become convinced that every person should treat himself strictly and even rudely and distrustfully; it’s difficult to tame the beast in oneself.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I don’t see why it’s impossible to express everything that’s on one’s mind.
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There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another.
IVAN TURGENEV