Quote

What's terrible is that there's nothing terrible, that the very essence of life is petty, uninteresting, and degradingly trite.

Ivan Turgenev

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Futility
Alienation
Petty
Essence
Terrible
Nothing
Life
Trite
Uninteresting

More quotes by Ivan Turgenev

Image
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
Image
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
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
Image
I've become convinced that every person should treat himself strictly and even rudely and distrustfully it's difficult to tame the beast in oneself.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
I'm incapable of describing the feeling with which I left. I wouldn't want it ever to be repeated, but I would have considered myself unfortunate if I'd never experienced it.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
Take what you can yourself, and don't let others get you into their hands to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
I agree with no one's opinion. I have some of my own.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
Don't force me into saying what I don't want to say, and what I won't say.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
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
Image
I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
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
Image
Circumstances define us they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
Ivan Turgenev
Image
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
Ivan Turgenev
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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