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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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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
Individual
Contemplating
Makes
Deception
Doesn
Demands
Nothing
Gifts
Serenely
Life
Demand
Deceives
Except
Accepts
Accepting
Contemplate
Everyone
Deceiving

More quotes by Ivan Turgenev

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Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
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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.
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It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.
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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
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Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.
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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.
Ivan Turgenev
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Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.
Ivan Turgenev
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What's important is that twice two is four and all the rest's nonsense.
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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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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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.
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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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The temerity to believe in nothing.
Ivan Turgenev
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I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
Ivan Turgenev
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Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
Ivan Turgenev
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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.
Ivan Turgenev
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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.
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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Illness isn't the only thing that spoils the appetite.
Ivan Turgenev
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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?
Ivan Turgenev