All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sorts of difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.
IVAN TURGENEVI never started from ideas but always from character.
More Ivan Turgenev Quotes
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However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
IVAN TURGENEV -
The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.
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 -
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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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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Everyone needs help from everyone else.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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!
IVAN TURGENEV -
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 -
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 -
It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
IVAN TURGENEV -
Behind me there are already so many memories Lots of memories, but no point in remembering them, and ahead of me a long, long road with nothing to aim for I just don’t want to go along it.
IVAN TURGENEV -
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.
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 -
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.
IVAN TURGENEV