Ivan Turgenev Quotes

Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!

~ Ivan Turgenev

A withered maple leaf has left its branch and is falling to the ground, its movements resemble those of a butterfly in flight. Isn't it strange? The saddest and deadest of things is yet so like the gayest and most vital of creatures?

~ 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

That's what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.

~ Ivan Turgenev

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

~ Ivan Turgenev

I want everything or nothing. A life for a life, taking one and giving up another without hesitation and beyond recall. Or else better have nothing!

~ Ivan Turgenev

Traces of human life vanish very quickly: Glafira Petrovna's estate had not yet gone wild, but it seemed already to have sunk into that quiet repose which possesses everything on earth wherever there is no restless human infection to affect it.

~ Ivan Turgenev

Can it be thattheir prayers and their tears are fruitless? Can it be that love,sacred devoted love, is not all powerful? Oh, no! Howeverpassionate, sinful or rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, theflowers growing over it peep at us serenely with their innocent eyes;they tell us not only of eternal peace, of that great peace ofindifferent nature; they tell us also of eternal reconciliation andof life without end.

~ Ivan Turgenev

You are an old pig!'one of them said to the other. 'And that is worse than being a young one.

~ Ivan Turgenev

A man's capable of understanding anything - how the ether vibrates, and what's going on in the sun - but how any other man can blow his nose differently from him, that he's incapable of understanding.

~ Ivan Turgenev

And was it his destined part / Only one moment in his life / To be close to your heart?

~ Ivan Turgenev

It seemed to us that all people to a greater or lesser degree belong to one of these two types, that almost every one of us resembles either Don Quixote or Hamlet.

~ Ivan Turgenev

O youth! youth! you go your way heedless, uncaring – as if you owned all the treasures of the world; even grief elates you, even sorrow sits well upon your brow. You are self-confident and insolent and you say, 'I alone am alive – behold!' even while your own days fly past and vanish without trace and without number, and everything within you melts away like wax in the sun .. like snow .. and perhaps the whole secret of your enchantment lies not, indeed, in your power to do whatever you may will, but in your power to think that there is nothing you will not do: it is this that you scatter to the winds – gifts which you could never have used to any other purpose. Each of us feels most deeply convinced that he has been too prodigal of his gifts – that he has a right to cry, 'Oh, what could I not have done, if only I had not wasted my time.

~ Ivan Turgenev

O youth! youth! you have no concerns, you possess, as it were, all the treasures of the universe, even grief is a comfort to you, even sadness suits your looks, you are self-assured and bold, you say: 'Look, I'm the only one alive!' while the very days of your life run away and vanish without a trace and without number and everything in you disappears like wax, like snow in the hear of the sun... And perhaps the entire et of your charm consists not in the possibility of doing everything, but in the possibility of thinking perhaps it consists precisely in the fact that you want only to scatter on the wind energies that you wouldn't know how to use for anything else, perhaps it consists in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as a spendthrift and seriously considers that he has the right to say: 'Oh, the things I could have done if only I hadn't wasted my time!

~ Ivan Turgenev

O youth! youth! you have no concerns, you possess, as it were, all the treasures of the universe, even grief is a comfort to you, even sadness suits your looks, you are self-assured and bold, you say: 'Look, I'm the only one alive!' while the very days of your life run away and vanish without a trace and without number and everything in you disappears like wax, like snow in the heat of the sun... And perhaps the entire secret of your charm consists not in the possibility of doing everything, but in the possibility of thinking you can do everything, perhaps it consists precisely in the fact that you want only to scatter on the wind energies that you wouldn't know how to use for anything else, perhaps it consists in the fact that each one of us seriously regards himself as a spendthrift and seriously considers that he has the right to say: 'Oh, the things I could have done if only I hadn't wasted my time!

~ Ivan Turgenev

that's all the stars do, look at lovers – that's why they're so beautiful

~ Ivan Turgenev

To be young and not to know how, is bearable; to be old and not have the strength, is too great a weight to carry. And what's is so painful you can't sense your powers leaving you. It's hard for an old man to ensure such blows!

~ 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

Nezhdanov's heart began to beat violently and he lowered his eyes involuntarily. This girl, who had fallen in love with a homeless wretch like him, who trusted him, who was ready to follow him, to go with him towards one and the same goal — this wonderful girl — Marianna — at that moment was, for Nezhdanov, the embodiment of everything good and just on earth; the embodiment of that love, that of a family, sister or wife, which he had not experienced; the embodiment of homeland, happiness, struggle and freedom.

~ Ivan Turgenev

It's no good writing if God hasn't given you talent. People will just laugh.

~ Ivan Turgenev

Woe to the heart that has not loved in youth!

~ Ivan Turgenev

Weak people never put an end to things themselves. They always wait for the end.

~ Ivan Turgenev

Sentimental outbreaks are like liquorice; when first you suck it, it's not bad, but afterwards it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.

~ Ivan Turgenev

was coming to that troubled twilight time, a time of regrets that resemble hopes, of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth is past but old age has not yet come.

~ Ivan Turgenev

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

~ Ivan Turgenev

Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.

~ Ivan Turgenev

Women... can't live with 'em... can't shoot 'em.

~ Ivan Turgenev

To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.

~ Ivan Turgenev

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

In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!

~ Ivan Turgenev

In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly obedient to its own laws, it doesn't know art, just as it doesn't know freedom, just as it doesn't know goodness.

~ Ivan Turgenev