Anna Karenina Quotes

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

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

I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

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.

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

Spring is the time of plans and projects.

Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?.

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

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand." - Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina}.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly.

Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.

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.

it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.

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?.

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

It's hard to love a woman and do anything.

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.

Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.

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

He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it." - Vronksy {Anna Karenina}.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

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.

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

Every heart has its own skeletons.

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.

Everything intelligent is so boring.

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.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?.

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.

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.

And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.

He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.

The Kingdom of God is Within You,.

He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.

Enough or not...it will have to do.

There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.

And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.

Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

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

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.

What am I coming for?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I have come to be where you are," he said; "I can't help it.

Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--that's in your hands.

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.

I ask one thing: I ask the right to hope and suffer as I do now." Vronsky.

If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.

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

He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.

Teach French and unteach sincerity.

There are as many kinds of love, as there are hearts.

There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.

He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly.

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.

There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious.

I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.

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.

I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?.

These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.

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

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

And where love ends, hate begins.

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

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 trifling.

I can’t think of you and myself apart. You and I are the same to me.

God forgive me everything!’ she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling...

Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox.

Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand.

The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.

...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.

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.

He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

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?.

I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.