Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way."

"Everyone had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire."

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

"Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!"

"The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met, Kitty's eyes said: "Who are you? What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't suppose," her eyes added, "that I would force my acquaintance on you, I simply admire you and like you."I like you too, and you're very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time," answered the eyes of the unknown girl."

"A man could not be prevented from making himself a big wax doll, and kissing it. But if the man were to come with the doll and sit before a man in love, and begin caressing his doll as the lover caressed the woman he loved, it would be distastefulto the lover. Just such a distasteful sensation was what Mihailov felt at the sight of Vronsky’s painting: he felt it both ludicrous and irritating, both pitiable and offensive."

"The very same thing, don't you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically."

"Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't got."

"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."

"Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death."

"When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him... It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward... Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life."

"Well, what of it? I've not given up thinking of death. It's true that it's high time I was dead; and that all this is nonsense. It's the truth I'm telling you. I do value my idea and my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes."

"But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment."

"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."

"As often happens between people who have chosen different ways, each of them, while rationally justifying the other's activity, despised it in his heart. To each of them it seemed that the life he led was the only real life, and the one his friend led was a mere illusion."

"He was nine years old; he was a child; he he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul."

"The coffee was never served. It boiled over, spattered them all, and wet a costly tablecloth and the baroness's dress. But it served the end that was desired for it gave rise to many jests and merry peals of laughter."

"That one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself."

"And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy."

"God knows of love"