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 TURGENEVNature creates while destroying, and doesn’t care whether it creates or destroys as long as life isn’t extinguished, as long as death doesn’t lose its rights.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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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.
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I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor’s nature.
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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.
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That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
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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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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’ve become convinced that every person should treat himself strictly and even rudely and distrustfully; it’s difficult to tame the beast in oneself.
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I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.
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I’m incapable of describing the feeling with which I left. I wouldn’t want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I’d never experienced it.
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Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
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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.
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Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that’s all!
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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.
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Significance is sweet.
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Don’t force me into saying what I don’t want to say, and what I won’t say.
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There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
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We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
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The past was a dream wasn’t it? And who ever remembers dreams?
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A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.
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He was the soul of politeness to everyone — to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.
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Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late. It can give no pleasure, yet it deprives you of that most precious of rights – the right to swear and curse at your fate!
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The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
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Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
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Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there’ll come a time when you’ll start asking just for a crust.
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It’s all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
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A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves in full bloom or as they fade away.
IVAN TURGENEV