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Ivan Turgenev

Ivan Turgenev Quotes

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Famous Ivan Turgenev Quotes

“There's only one way for an individual to remain upright, not to fall to pieces, not to sink into the mire of self-oblivionorself-contempt. That's calmly to turn away from everything, to say, "Enough!" and, folding one's useless arms across one's empty breast, to retain the ultimate, the sole attainable virtue, the virtue of recognizing one's own insignificance.”

WaySelfEnoughTurnsFallIndividualVirtuePiecesArmsEmptyUltimateOne WayUselessBreastsPessimismContemptSoleRecognizingRenunciationInsignificanceFolding
Author:Ivan Turgenev
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“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.”

HeartEndsEyeGrowingFlowerEternalPassionateInnocentOver ItIndifferentReconciliationRebelliousTombsSinningEternal PeaceFlowers GrowingInnocent Eyes
Book:Delphi Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated)
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“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.”

KnowsMenBelieveWholeFallTakenPiecesDogMonthsSmartFellowsMalesWhole LifeUnhappyCardsNonsenseRagsFlogging
Author:Ivan Turgenev
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“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!”

ThinkingLyingSpaceBrainBloodHavensPeriodsEternityRelationChaosTinyMathematicalComparisonAtomsInsignificantFarceLying Here
Author:Ivan Turgenev
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