Ivan Turgenev

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

Who among us has the strength to oppose petty egoism, those petty good feelings, pity and remorse?

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

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

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.

Women… can’t live with ’em… can’t shoot ’em.

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

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

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.

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