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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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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
Workshop
Workmen
Workshops
Temple
Temples
Atheism
Nature
Men
Workman

More quotes by Ivan Turgenev

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I share no man's opinions I have my own.
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What's terrible is that there's nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.
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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
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Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
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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.
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It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
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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I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.
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Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.
Ivan Turgenev
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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
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Nature creates while destroying, and doesn't care whether it creates or destroys as long as life isn't extinguished, as long as death doesn't lose its rights.
Ivan Turgenev
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Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.
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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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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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.
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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The temerity to believe in nothing.
Ivan Turgenev
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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.
Ivan Turgenev
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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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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