Ivan Turgenev Quotes, Thoughts and images

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.

We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

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

a person who gets angry at his own illness is sure to overcome it

Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.

Belonging to oneself the whole essence of life lies in that.

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

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.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me - a long, long road without a goal.

Every man's happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.

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

What's important is that twice two is four and all the rest's nonsense.

Go and try to disprove death. Death will disprove you, and that's all!

I only know that I feel tired, antiquated; I feel as though I had been living a long, long time.

In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.

There is a sweetness in being the sole source, the autocratic and irresponsible cause of the greatest joy and profoundest pain to another.

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

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

I never started from ideas but always from character.

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

Everyone needs help from everyone else.

There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.

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

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

So long as one's just dreaming about what to do, one can soar like an eagle and move mountains, it seems, but as soon as one starts doing it one gets worn out and tired.