Ivan Turgenev Quotes

59 Sourced Quotes

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

Ivan Turgenev
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.

Ivan Turgenev
That vague, crepuscular time, the time of regrets that resemble hopes, of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth has passed, but old age has not yet arrived.

Ivan Turgenev
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.

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

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
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. "I don't adopt any one's ideas; I have my own."

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

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

Ivan Turgenev
However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.

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

Ivan Turgenev
Whatever a person may pray for, that person prays for a miracle. Every prayer comes down to this - Almighty God, grant that two times two not equal four.

Ivan Turgenev
In days of doubt, in days of sad brooding on my country's fate, thou alone art my rod and my staff—mighty, true, free Russian speech! But for thee, how not to fall into despair, seeing all that happens at home? Yet who can think that such a tongue is not given to a great people?

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

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

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

Ivan Turgenev
A nihilist is a man who does not bow to any authorities, who does not take any principle on trust, no matter with what respect that principle is surrounded.

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

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
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