Ivan TurgenevThinkers

Art is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.

Beginning is an impossibility if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready before starting.

The Child is there so that their parents may not be bored.

Circumstance defines us by forcing us onto one road or another, and then punishes us for it.

Death is like a fisherman who catches fish in his net and leaves them for a while in the water... the fish is still swimming but the net is around him, and the fisherman will draw him up when he thinks fit.

Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time... the fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it out in his own good time.

Expression is the measure of good science. Any good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.

Fate is a way people without firmness of character relieve themselves of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves.

Happiness is always built on the unhappiness of another.

Happiness is worse and more hurtful than all else when it is a happiness that comes too late.

Life deceives everyone except the individual who doesn't contemplate it, the individual who demands nothing from it, the individual who serenely accepts its few gifts and serenely makes the most of them.

Life's very essence is petty, uninteresting, and degrading. What's really terrible is that there's nothing terrible.

Love is not a feeling at all, but rather, it's an illness, a certain condition of body and soul that takes possession of someone without his permission, all of a sudden, against his will-- just like cholera or a fever.

Love is stronger than death or the fear of death because by it alone life holds together and advances.