Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
IVAN TURGENEVCircumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
IVAN TURGENEVThat’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
IVAN TURGENEVEven nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
IVAN TURGENEVNothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
IVAN TURGENEVI never started from ideas but always from character.
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.
IVAN TURGENEVWhatever 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 TURGENEVWhatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
IVAN TURGENEVLove, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
IVAN TURGENEVThe temerity to believe in nothing.
IVAN TURGENEVGreat God, grant that twice two be not four.
IVAN TURGENEVWho among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
IVAN TURGENEVWe sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
IVAN TURGENEVWe 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 TURGENEVI agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.
IVAN TURGENEVI walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.
IVAN TURGENEV