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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

I was afraid of looking into my heart…afraid of thinking seriously about anything…I did not want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to admit to myself that I was not loved.
IVAN TURGENEV

Admit Afraid Heart Love Myself
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

Angry Failure Far Jealous Road Strength
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

Alone Bad Existence Fact Myself
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

Autocracy Greatness Pain Reason Source Sweet
Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
IVAN TURGENEV

Death Deep Encounter Joke New
Nature 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.
IVAN TURGENEV

Creation Destroy Nature Right
I never started from ideas but always from character.
IVAN TURGENEV

Character Ideas Myself Start
What’s terrible is that there’s nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
IVAN TURGENEV

Degrade Essence Life Terrible
I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.
IVAN TURGENEV

Heaven Myself
Ah, but in time the heat of noontide passes, and to it there succeed nightfall and dusk, with a return to the quiet fold where for the weary an the heavy-laden there waits sleep, sweet sleep.
IVAN TURGENEV

Heat heavy Pass Return Sleep Time Wait
The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
IVAN TURGENEV

Atheist Fact Simplicity
The temerity to believe in nothing.
IVAN TURGENEV

Believe One Liner
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
IVAN TURGENEV

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

Circumstance Force Punishment Road
Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
IVAN TURGENEV

Blow Different People Understand
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

Answer Expectation Nature Song Spiritual Understand Word Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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