Ivan Turgenev
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.Collection: Brainy
The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.Collection: Future
In days of doubt, in days of dreary musings on my country's fate, you alone are my comfort and support, oh great, powerful, righteous, and free Russian language!Collection: Alone
Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly.Collection: Time
Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.Collection: Death
However much you knock at nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.Collection: Nature
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.Collection: Sympathy
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.Collection: Poetry
In the end, nature is inexorable: it has no reason to hurry and, sooner or later, it takes what belongs to it. Unconsciously and inflexibly obedient to its own laws, it doesn't know art, just as it doesn't know freedom, just as it doesn't know goodness.Collection: Freedom
Women... can't live with 'em... can't shoot 'em.
We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars.
There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.
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.
Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.
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.
One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.
I agree with no one's opinion. I have some of my own.
Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?
Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.Collection: Motivational
Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.Collection: Hurtful
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.Collection: Anger
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.Collection: Heart
The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.Collection: Running
Love isn't actually a feeling at all--it's an illness, a certain condition of body and soul.... Usually it takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will--just like cholera or a fever.Collection: Love Is
I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.Collection: Love
Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Life
Time, as is well known, sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a worm, but human beings are generally particularly happy when they don't notice whether it's passing quickly or slowly.Collection: Bird
Belonging to oneself--the whole essence of life lies in that.Collection: Life
a person who gets angry at his own illness is sure to overcome itCollection: Overcoming
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.Collection: Doe
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.Collection: Hands
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man's the workman in it.Collection: Nature
Every man's happiness is built on the unhappi-ness of another.Collection: Happiness
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.Collection: Self
The temerity to believe in nothing.Collection: Believe
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.Collection: Fairy Tale
He was the soul of politeness to everyone -- to some with a hint of aversion, to others with a hint of respect.Collection: Soul
Great God, grant that twice two be not four.Collection: Atheist
I must say, though, that a man who has staked his whole life on the card of a woman's love and who, when that card is trumped, falls to pieces and lets himself go to the dogs -- a fellow like that is not a man, not a male. You say he's unhappy -- you know best. But all the nonsense hasn't been taken out of him yet. I'm sure he really believes he's a smart fellow just because he reads that rag Galignani and saves a muzhik from a flogging once a month.Collection: Dog
Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself.Collection: Prayer
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?Collection: Joy
Bazarov drew himself up haughtily. "I don't adopt any one's ideas; I have my own.Collection: Ideas
I am a flirt: I have no heart: I have an actor's nature.Collection: Heart
Oh youth, youth! You don't worry about anything; you seem to possess all the treasures of the universe--even sorrow gives you pleasure, even grief suits you.... And perhaps the whole secret of your charm lies not in your ability to do everything, but in your ability to think that you will do everything.Collection: Lying
It's all romanticism, nonsense, rottenness, art.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Flower
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.Collection: Nature
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.Collection: Sinking Feeling