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 many memories and so little worth remembering, and in front of me - a long, long road without a goal.
Interpretation
Life is filled with fleeting moments, but not all are significant. A journey without purpose can feel aimless.
In this quote, Turgenev reflects on the nature of memories and the often overlooked insignificance of many experiences in our lives. He emphasizes the importance of having a direction or goal, as wandering through life without purpose can lead to a sense of emptiness despite the multitude of memories we accumulate.
In practice
This quote could be used in a graduation speech to emphasize the importance of setting goals for the future.
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.
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.
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!
Death's an old joke, but each individual encounters it anew.
I walked in the meadows of green grieving for my life.
Union in privacy (with one's wife); boldness; storing away useful items; watchfulness; and not easily trusting others; these five things are to be learned from a crow.
Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don't know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance.
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The single most important tool to being in balance is knowing that you and you alone are responsible for the imbalance between what you dream your life is meant to be, and the daily habits that drain life from that dream.
Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but less by assimilation than by friction.
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