Ivan Turgenev Quotes

• I share no one’s ideas. I have my own.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

• We’re young, we’re not monsters, no fools: we’ll conquer happiness for ourselves.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happiness

• Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to his: ‘Great G-d, grant that twice two be not four.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Prayer

• 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.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Away, Secret

• Death’s an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Death

  Tags in Old, Joke

• I agree with no one’s opinion. I have some of my own.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Opinion, Agree

• The word tomorrow was invented for indecisive people and for children.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Word

• 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.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Art, Nature

  Tags in Freedom

• 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!

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Great, Powerful

• Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Force

• However much you knock at nature’s door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Nature

  Tags in Words

• 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

  Topics in Death, Life, Nature

• 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

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Character

• One may speak about anything on earth with fire, with enthusiasm, with ecstasy, but one only speaks about oneself with avidity.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fire

• Most people can’t understand how others can blow their noses differently than they do.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Understand

• 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.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Time, Whether

• We sit in the mud… and reach for the stars.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Stars, Reach

• There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Point

• To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Topics in Sympathy

  Tags in Nothing

Ivan Turgenev (24)

Birth:	9th November, 1818
Death:	3rd September, 1883
Nationality:	Russian
Profession:	Novelist, Playwright, Writer

About

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was born in Oryol, Russia. He was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. He studied at the University of Moscow, the University of Saint Petersburg(Classics, Russian literature, and philology), and the University of Berlin(philosophy). He wrote several novels include: Rudin, Home of the Gentry, On the Eve, Fathers and Sons, Smoke, Torrents of Spring, and Virgin Soil. His Selected shorter fiction include: The Diary of a Superfluous Man(novella), A Sportsman's Sketches(short stories), Mumu(short story), First Love(novella), and Klara Milich(novella). He wrote several plays include: A Provincial Lady, A Month in the Country, and Fortune's Fool.

Related Authors

• Philip K. Dick
• Christopher Pike
• Tracie Peterson
• Alison Lurie
• William Boyd
• Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
• J.R. Ward
• Kate L. Bosher
• Kathryn Hulme
• Sarah Dunant

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st January

Births

• 1938 - Wolfman Jack
• 1962 - Marie Trintignant
• 1946 - Johnny Oates
• 1884 - Texas Guinan
• 1950 - Robert Luskin

Deaths

• 1932 - Lytton Strachey
• 1997 - Colonel Tom Parker
• 2008 - Evan G. Galbraith
• 1924 - Vladimir Lenin
• 1870 - Alexander Herzen