“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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“Pain ripped through my leg, and I knew from the powerful scent and the disturbing warmth that my blood was flowing freely. I kicked instinctively with my left leg, and followed that with another blow from the shovel, this one powered by anger, as well as fear. And to my extreme satisfaction, that bastard hobbled away from me with a dislocated shoulder, mewling like a newborn kitten.
Meow, meow, motherfucker.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Prey
“She bowed her head and said, "Lord of hosts, please stand with us against this darkness." The quiet, bedrock-deep energy of true faith brushed against me.
Murphy echoed the gesture and the amen. Thomas and I tried to look theologically invisible.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Proven Guilty
“Did you become a Christian in your nunnery?' I asked her.
'Of course not.' she said scornfully.
'They didn't mind?'
'I gave them silver.'
'Then they didn't mind.' I said.
'I don't think any Dane is a real Christian.' she told me.
'Not even your brother?'
'We have many gods,' she said, 'and the Christian god is just another one. I'm sure that's what Guthred thinks. What's the Christian god's name? A nun did tell me, but I've forgotten.'
'Jehovah.'
There you are, then. Odin, Thor and Jehovah. Does he have a wife?'
'No.'
'Poor Jehovah.' she said.”
― Bernard Cornwell, quote from Lords of the North
“It's not really much good tearing out a page because you can see the place where it's been torn. [...] You can pull a stamp out,' she said with terrible youthful clarity, 'and you don't know that it's ever been there.”
― Graham Greene, quote from The Heart of the Matter
“Now if you’ll excuse me, real life is calling and there’s no room for self-righteous, delusional little girls. Big boys only.”
― Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, quote from Fugly
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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.
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