“Nothing is worse and more hurtful than a happiness that comes too late. It can give no pleasure, yet it deprives you of that most precious of rights - the right to swear and curse at your fate!”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
“Poetry is the language of the gods. I love poems myself. But poetry is not only in poems; it is diffused everywhere, it is around us. Look at those trees, that sky on all sides there is the breath of beauty, and of life, and where there is life and beauty, there is poetry also.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
“Words indeed have been my ruin; they have consumed me, and to the end I cannot be free of them.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
“Deny everything and you will easily pass for a man of ability; it's a well known trick. Simple hearted people are quite ready to conclude that you are worth more than what you deny. And that's often an error. In the first place, you can pick holes in anything; and secondly, even if you are right in what you say, it's the worse for you, your intellect, directed by simple negation, grows colorless and withers up. While you gratify your vanity, you are deprived of the true consolations of thought;life--the essence of life--evades your jaundiced and petty criticism, and you end by scolding and becoming ridiculous. Only one who loves has the right to censure and find fault.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
“In his funeral oration the spokesman of the most artistic and critical of European nations, Ernest Renan, hailed him as one of the greatest writers of our times: ‘The Master, whose exquisite works have charmed our century, stands more than any other man as the incarnation of a whole race,’ because ‘a whole world lived in him and spoke through his mouth.’ Not the Russian world only, we may add, but the whole Slavonic world, to which it was ‘an honour to have been expressed by so great a Master.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
“And yet can it be that I was fit for nothing, that for me there was, as it were, no work on earth to do?”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Rudin
Ivan Turgenev
Born place: in Oryol, Russian Empire
Born date November 9, 1818
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“Hell's Bells ringing, my secret music...”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Vampire Lestat
“You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't.”
― Christopher Moore, quote from Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
“Intelligence requires first the gift of curiosity. Without curiosity, who would ask questions? Second, intelligence is the ability to synthesize. Facts alone signify little. Neither are they to be trusted. Intelligence is the subtle arrangement of that which might or might not be true, the intuitive selection and the weaving of such selections into a pleasing whole that makes for meaning. Third, intelligence has need of laughter. Without laughter so much that is bitter and dark is allowed into being. That which is bitter and dark may be clever, it may even be cunning, but it is never intelligent. As for wisdom, wisdom is simple. The wise are able to recognize, and to accept, that not only is one never intelligent enough, but that when all is said and done, one knows exactly nothing.”
― Ki Longfellow, quote from Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria
“A chaos of mind and body - a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight - a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity - an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects - a heart to ache or swell- a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them...”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King
“It was nice - in the dark and the quiet... and her eyes looking back, like there was something in me worth seeing.”
― John Green, quote from Paper Towns
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Pale Horse, Pale Rid...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
