Oh youth, youth! You don't worry about anything; you seem to possess all the treasures of the universe--even sorrow gives you pleasure, even grief suits you.... And perhaps the whole secret of your charm lies not in your ability to do everything, but in your ability to think that you will do everything.

Ivan Turgenev

If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

Ivan Turgenev

inspiration business motivational

I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like. But i do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible.

Ivan Turgenev

good-man heart men

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.

Ivan Turgenev

soul feelings love-is

The people who bind themselves to systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch it by the tail; a system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a lizard; it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that it will grow a new one in a twinkling.

Ivan Turgenev

knowing running people

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

Ivan Turgenev

force circumstances

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

Ivan Turgenev

mud stars

Go forward while you can, but if your strength fails you, sit down near the road and gaze without anger or envy at those who pass by. They don't have far to go, either.

Ivan Turgenev

envy failing anger

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

Ivan Turgenev

stronger together love

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.

Ivan Turgenev

time-passing bird sometimes

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

Ivan Turgenev

desire sympathy profound

You may live a long while with some people and be on friendly terms with them and never speak openly with them from your soul.

Ivan Turgenev

friendship long people

Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late.

Ivan Turgenev

hurtful late too-late

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

Ivan Turgenev

old-jokes individual encounters

In my case there was no first love. I began with the second.

Ivan Turgenev

first-love cases firsts

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.

Ivan Turgenev

human-nature feet may

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.

Ivan Turgenev

tired dream moving

Looking about me, listening and recalling what the day had been like, I suddenly felt a secret unease in my heart and raised my eyes to the sky, but even in the sky there seemed to be no tranquillity. Dotted with stars, it constantly quivered and danced and shivered.

Ivan Turgenev

stars eye heart

I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.

Ivan Turgenev

personality love believe

Take what you can yourself, and don't let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself, that is the whole thing in life.

Ivan Turgenev

things-in-life whole hands

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.

Ivan Turgenev

miracle prayer two