Ivan Turgenev Quotes

59 Sourced Quotes

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better--but you keep working anyway.

Ivan Turgenev
However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of "indifferent" nature: they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.

Ivan Turgenev
A picture shows me at a glance what it takes dozens of pages of a book to expound.

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

Ivan Turgenev
A son is like a lopped off branch. As a falcon he comes when he wills and goes where he lists.

Ivan Turgenev
The past was a dream wasn't it? And who ever remembers dreams?

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
The only people who remain misunderstood are those who either do not know what they want or are not worth understanding.

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

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
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.

Ivan Turgenev
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.

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

Ivan Turgenev
Looking about me, listening and recalling what the day had been like, I suddenly felt a secret unease in my heart and raised my eyes to the sky, but even in the sky there seemed to be no tranquillity. Dotted with stars, it constantly quivered and danced and shivered.

Ivan Turgenev
We Russians have assigned ourselves no other task in life but the cultivation of our own personalities, and when we're barely past childhood, we set to work to cultivate them, those unfortunate personalities.

Ivan Turgenev
You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.

Ivan Turgenev
Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we're absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.

Ivan Turgenev
Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.

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
He was the soul of politeness to everyone — to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.

Ivan Turgenev
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?

Ivan Turgenev
Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.

Ivan Turgenev
Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don't have far to go, either.

Ivan Turgenev