Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenevwas a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, was a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sonsis regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth9 November 1818
CountryRussian Federation
nature care wheels
Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel
atheist two four
Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
joy soul touching
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?
writing character ideas
I never started from ideas but always from character.
dream moving tired
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.
bird sometimes time-passing
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.
roots secret poet
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.
book fall reflection
He went to bed early, but could not fall asleep. He was haunted by sad and gloomy reflections about the inevitable end- death. These thoughts were familiar to him, many times had he turned them over this way and that, first shuddering at the probability of annihilation, then welcoming it, almost rejoicing in it. Suddenly a peculiarly familiar agitation took possession of him... He mused awhile, sat down at the table, and wrote down the following lines in his sacred copy-book, without a single correction:
dog smart believe
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.
fairy-tale feds tales
Even nightingales can’t be fed on fairy tales.
love-is soul feelings
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.
feet may human-nature
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.
mind impossible
I don't see why it's impossible to express everything that's on one's mind.
children bored parent
That's what children are for—that their parents may not be bored.