Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” Quotes (101 Quotes)

If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.

No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit

Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his family-- the monkey.

This child, with his naive outlook on life was the compass which showed them the degree of their departure from what they knew but did not want to know.

Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously and cannot even insult each one another.

He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it

I'll tell you truly: I value my thought and work terribly, but in essence - think about it - this whole world of ours is just a bit of mildew that grew over a tiny planet. And we think we can have something great - thoughts, deeds! They're all grains of sand

No one is satisfied with his position, but every one is satisfied with his wit

Teach French and unteach sincerity.

To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.

But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst of it all is that she's already… it seems as if ill-luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is to be done?

He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.

I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.

Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget...

The Kingdom of God is Within You,

We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?

A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of born freethinker has been appearing, who've never even heard that there have been laws of morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative ideas about everything, that is savages.

But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.

He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires.

In all human sorrow nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is trifiling.

Oh no, Papa, Kitty objected warmly. Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stah. Perhaps, he said, pressing her arm with his elbow. But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows anything about it.

The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.

We walked to meet each other up at the time of our love and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions, and there's no altering that.

A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.

But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

In infinite time, in infinite matter, in infinite space, is formed a bubble organism, and that bubble lasts a while and bursts, and that bubble is Me.

One must do one of two tings: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one's rights in it;or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as i do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.

The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it was terrible but true

What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world!

Ah, if everyone was as sensitive as you! There's no girl who hasn't gone through that. And it's all so unimportant!

But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.

Only Anna was sad. She knew that now, from Dolly's departure, no one again would stir up within her soul the feelings that had been roused by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading.

The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.

All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.

But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.

In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...

When you understand that you will die to-morrow, if not to-day, and nothing will be left, then everything is so unimportant!... So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with work - anything so as not think of death

All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone- had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.

Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.

He went down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, but he saw her, as one sees the sun, without looking.

In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.