Ivan Turgenev Quotes

Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.

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.

The fact is that previously they were simply dunces and now they’ve suddenly become nihilists.

Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?

Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.

I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.

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.

Don’t force me into saying what I don’t want to say, and what I won’t say.

A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.

I don’t see why it’s impossible to express everything that’s on one’s mind.