The past was a dream wasn’t it? And who ever remembers dreams?
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.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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We sit in the mud and reach for the stars.
IVAN TURGENEV -
I don’t see why it’s impossible to express everything that’s on one’s mind.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 -
You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 -
I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.
IVAN TURGENEV -
However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
IVAN TURGENEV -
The temerity to believe in nothing.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 TURGENEV -
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 -
Significance is sweet.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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?
IVAN TURGENEV -
That’s what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.
IVAN TURGENEV