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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

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Ivan Turgenev
Age: 65 †
Born: 1818
Born: January 1
Died: 1883
Died: January 1
Dramaturge
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Poet
Prosaist
Translator
Writer
Orel
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
Pass
Anger
Road
Forward
Failing
Gaze
Strength
Fails
Either
Near
Without
Envy

More quotes by Ivan Turgenev

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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?
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Tempered, gradual animation, the methodical restrain of sensations and energies, the equilibrium of sickness and health in each creature--this is nature's essence, its immutable law, this is what it's based on and what it adheres to.
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All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.
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We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.
Ivan Turgenev
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Circumstances define us they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
Ivan Turgenev
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Only one thing bothered me: at this very moment, as they say, of inexplicable bliss there would be a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach and my abdomen would be assailed by a melancholy, cold shivering. In the end I couldn't abide such happiness and ran away.
Ivan Turgenev
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Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
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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.
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There's something tragic in the fate of almost every person--it's just that the tragic is often concealed from a person by the banal surface of life.... A woman will complain of indigestion and not even know that what she means is that her whole life has been shattered.
Ivan Turgenev
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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
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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
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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.
Ivan Turgenev
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Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.
Ivan Turgenev
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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
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We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.
Ivan Turgenev
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Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.
Ivan Turgenev
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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
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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.
Ivan Turgenev
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It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
Ivan Turgenev
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The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.
Ivan Turgenev