First Love and Other Stories Quotes

“Do you know what really makes man free?'
'What?'
'Will, your own will, and it gives power which is better than liberty. Know how to want, and you'll be free, and you'll be master too.”
― Ivan Turgenev, First Love and Other Stories

“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, First Love and Other Stories

“From lips indifferent of her death I heard,
Indifferently I listened to it, too,'

were echoing in my heart. O youth, youth! little dost thou care for anything; thou art master, as it were, of all the treasures of the universe—even sorrow gives thee pleasure, even grief thou canst turn to thy profit; thou art self-confident and insolent; thou sayest, 'I alone am living—look you!'—but thy days fly by all the while, and vanish without trace or reckoning; and everything in thee vanishes, like wax in the sun, like snow…. And, perhaps, the whole secret of thy charm lies, not in being able to do anything, but in being able to think thou wilt do anything; lies just in thy throwing to the winds, forces which thou couldst not make other use of; in each of us gravely regarding himself as a prodigal, gravely supposing that he is justified in saying, 'Oh, what might I not have done if I had not wasted my time!”
― Ivan Turgenev, First Love and Other Stories

“Oh, gentle emotions, soft sounds, kindness and calming of the
deeply-moved soul, melting joy of the first feelings of love,—where are
ye, where are ye?”
― Ivan Turgenev, First Love and Other Stories