The heart of another is a dark forest.
—Ivan Turgenev
The only people who remain misunderstood are those who either do not know what they want or are not worth understanding.
—Ivan Turgenev
I share no one’s ideas. I have my own.
—Ivan Turgenev
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.
—Ivan Turgenev
Topics: Prayer
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never begin.
—Ivan Turgenev
Topics: Procrastination
Just try and set death aside. It sets you aside, and that’s the end of it!
—Ivan Turgenev
Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.
—Ivan Turgenev
Death is an old joke, but it comes like new to everyone.
—Ivan Turgenev
I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
—Ivan Turgenev
Topics: Love
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Gerard de Nerval French Poet, Writer
Alexander Pushkin National Poet of Russia
Theodore Dreiser American Novelist, Journalist
George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) English Novelist
Anton Chekhov Russian Short Story Writer
Leo Tolstoy Russian Novelist
Maxim Gorky Russian Writer
Fyodor Dostoyevsky Russian Novelist
Mikhail Bulgakov Russian Novelist, Dramatist
Mikhail Lermontov Russian Novelist, Poet