Youth eats all the sugared fancy cakes and regards them as its daily bread. But there'll come a time when you'll start asking just for a crust.
Ivan TurgenevRead
So long as one's just dreaming about what to do, one can soar like an eagle and move mountains, it seems, but as soon as one starts doing it one gets worn out and tired.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Dreams can inspire us to envision great achievements, but taking action often reveals the challenges and fatigue involved.
This quote by Ivan Turgenev emphasizes the contrast between the idealism of dreaming and the reality of taking action. It suggests that while dreaming provides a sense of limitless potential, the process of pursuing those dreams can be exhausting and demanding, leading to fatigue and weariness. The realization that achieving great things requires effort and hard work can sometimes overshadow the initial thrill of dreaming.
Themes
DreamsActionEffortFatiguePotential
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about entrepreneurship.
More from Ivan Turgenev
All quotes →To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
Ivan TurgenevRead
So many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me - a long, long road without a goal.
Ivan TurgenevRead
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
Ivan TurgenevRead
Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!
Ivan TurgenevRead
Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
Ivan TurgenevRead
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I yearn for that livin' large, but mama I ain't done yet/Sit back and watch your son rise, kick back and know your son set
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There's an awful lot of future out there, and what you got to do, is you go to out and grab it, wrestle it to the ground, accept the challenges, and then decide. You've got the skills. You've got the knowledge. You've got the love, and you're capable of moving forward and making a great life yourself.
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