Ivan Turgenev Quotes

Russian - Novelist October 28, 1818 - September 3, 1883

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

Ivan Turgenev

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

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

Ivan Turgenev

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

Ivan Turgenev

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

Ivan Turgenev

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

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

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