Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenevwas a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, was a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sonsis regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth9 November 1818
CountryRussian Federation
nature men temples
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.
memories long want
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.
love-you believe personality
I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve....
blow people noses
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
dream past remember
The past was a dream wasn't it? And who ever remembers dreams?
feelings moments
There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
song nature doors
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.
fate rights giving
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!
feet may human-nature
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 sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.
art law reason
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.
life freedom lying
Belonging to oneself--the whole essence of life lies in that.
life essence alienation
What's terrible is that there's nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
book fall reflection
He went to bed early, but could not fall asleep. He was haunted by sad and gloomy reflections about the inevitable end- death. These thoughts were familiar to him, many times had he turned them over this way and that, first shuddering at the probability of annihilation, then welcoming it, almost rejoicing in it. Suddenly a peculiarly familiar agitation took possession of him... He mused awhile, sat down at the table, and wrote down the following lines in his sacred copy-book, without a single correction:
dog smart believe
I must say, though, that a man who has staked his whole life on the card of a woman's love and who, when that card is trumped, falls to pieces and lets himself go to the dogs -- a fellow like that is not a man, not a male. You say he's unhappy -- you know best. But all the nonsense hasn't been taken out of him yet. I'm sure he really believes he's a smart fellow just because he reads that rag Galignani and saves a muzhik from a flogging once a month.