Quotes

Pavel Petrovich had grown to hate Bazarov with all the strength of his soul.

Nature is not a temple but a workshop, and man is the workman in it."

"Well, am I to humor them, these provincial aristocrats?

Bazarov, who had a special capacity for winning the confidence of lower-class people, though he never cringed to them and indeed treated them casually;

“My father used to say that one of the great offences of sham politeness was the neglect of promises. When anything is demanded of you that you cannot do, refuse positively and leave no loopholes for false hopes; on the other hand, grant at once whatever you are willing to bestow.”

“Be not too confiding, nor frivolous, nor over enthusiastic, —three rocks on which youth often strikes. Too confiding a nature loses respect, frivolity brings contempt, and others take advantage of excessive enthusiasm.”

“To be loved, dear, to be comprehended, is the greatest of all joys; I pray that you may taste it!”

“No sooner therefore do you enter society, instead of living a life apart, than you are bound to consider its conditions binding; a contract is signed between you.”

“True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart."

“She was, as you know already without as yet knowing anything, the Lily of this valley, where she grew for heaven, filling it with the fragrance of her virtues.”

“Instead of inspiring the gallant attentions which other women seek, she made men dream,”

If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.

I am tormented by temptations." "What kind? There is a cure for temptation." "What?" "Yielding to it.“

„"I shall succeed!" he said to himself. So says the gambler; so says the great captain; but the three words that have been the salvation of some few, have been the ruin of many more.“

„Mankind are not perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another, and then simpletons say that its morality is high or low.“

„Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.“

“Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.”

“And time after time, his smile became more similar to the ferryman’s, became almost just as bright, almost just as thoroughly glowing with bliss, just as shining out of thousand small wrinkles, just as alike to a child’s, just as alike to an old man’s. Many travelers, seeing the two ferrymen, thought they were brothers. Often, they sat in the evening together by the bank on the log, said nothing and both listened to the water, which was no water to them, but the voice of life, the voice of what exists, of what is eternally taking shape. And it happened from time to time that both, when listening to the river, thought of the same things, of a conversation from the day before yesterday, of one of their travelers, the face and fate of whom had occupied their thoughts, of death, of their childhood, and that they both in the same moment, when the river had been saying something good to them, looked at each other, both thinking precisely the same thing, both delighted about the same answer to the same question.”

“I wish that you, oh exalted one, would not be angry with me,” said the young man. “I have not spoken to you like this to argue with you, to argue about words. You are truly right, there is little to opinions. But let me say this one more thing: I have not doubted in you for a single moment. I have not doubted for a single moment that you are Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal towards which so many thousands of Brahmans and sons of Brahmans are on their way. You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And—thus is my thought, oh exalted one—nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment! The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die. But often, I’ll think of this day, oh exalted one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a holy man.”