Quotes from Ivan Turgenev

Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

Each individual is more or less dimly aware of his significance, is aware that he's something innately superior, something eternal--and lives, is obligated to live, in the moment and for the moment.

I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.

Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don't notice whether it's passing quickly or slowly.

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

Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.

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

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

Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love- where are you?

What did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?

I was afraid of looking into my heart...afraid of thinking seriously about anything...I did not want to know whether I was loved, and I did not want to admit to myself that I was not loved.

I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze.

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

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.

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.

I'm incapable of describing the feeling with which I left. I wouldn't want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I'd never experienced it.

One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.

I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like. But i do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.

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

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

Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

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

It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.

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