Ivan Turgenev quotes

The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children. (Ivan Turgenev)
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
Ivan Turgenev
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.
Ivan Turgenev
People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.
Ivan Turgenev
I share no man's opinions I have my own.
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
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
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
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this 'Great God, grant that twice two be not four'.
Ivan Turgenev
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. "I don't adopt any one's ideas; I have my own." (Ivan Turgenev)
There was a time,' Nikolai Artemyevitch resumed, 'when daughters did not allow themselves to look down on their parents-when the parental authority forced the disobedient to tremble. That time has passed, unhappily: so at least many persons imagine; but let me tell you, there are still laws which do not permit-do not permit-in fact there are still laws. I beg you to mark that: there are still laws--.
Ivan Turgenev
We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.
Ivan Turgenev
Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
Ivan Turgenev
Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
Ivan Turgenev
Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
Ivan Turgenev
There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
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
Death is an old joke, but it comes like new to everyone.
Ivan Turgenev
Naturally," observed Nikolai Petrovich, "you were born here, so everything is bound to strike you with a special -""Really, Daddy, it makes absolutely no difference where a person is born.""Still -""No, it makes no difference at all.
Ivan Turgenev
For myself, I detest the fellow, and think him a charlatan. I am certain that, in spite of his frogs, he is making no real progress in physics. (Ivan Turgenev)
One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
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
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
Ivan Turgenev
However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.
Ivan Turgenev