“He felt that now over his every word, his every deed, there was a judge, a judgment, which was dearer to him than the judgments of all the people in the world. He spoke now, and along with his words he considered the impression his words would make on Natasha. He did not deliberately say what would be please her, but whatever he said, he judged himself from her point of view.”

“Am I mad, to see what others do not see, or are they mad who are responsible for all that I am seeing?”

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow- witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

“The doctor arrived towards dinnertime and said, of course, that although recurring phenomena might well elicit apprehension, nonetheless there was, strictly speaking, no positive indication, yet since neither was there any contraindication, it might, on the one hand, be supposed, but on the other hand it might also be supposed. And it was therefore necessary to stay in bed, and although I don't like prescribing, nevertheless take this and stay in bed.”

"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.

“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”

“Every reform by violence is to be deprecated, because it does little to correct the evil while men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.”

“The most important acts, both for the one who accomplishes them and for his fellow creatures, are those that have remote consequences.”

“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”

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

“The difference between what he had been then and what he now was, was enormous...Then he was free and fearless...now he felt himself caught in the meshes of a stupid, empty, valueless, frivolous life...He remembered how proud he was at one time of his straightforwardness, how he had made a rule of always speaking the truth...and he was now sunk deep in lies...lies considered as truth by all who surrounded him.”

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt it in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”

“Though men in their hundreds of thousands had tried their hardest to disfigure that little corner of the earth where they had crowded themselves together, paving the ground with stones so that nothing could grow, weeding out every blade of vegetation, filling the air with the fumes of coal and gas, cutting down trees and driving away every beast and every bird -- spring, however, was still spring, even in the town. The sun shone warm, the grass, wherever it had not been scraped away, revived and showed green not only on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards but between the paving-stones as well, and the birches, the poplars and the wild cherry-trees were unfolding their sticky, fragrant leaves, and the swelling buds were bursting on the lime trees; the jackdaws, the sparrows and the pigeons were cheerfully getting their nests ready for the spring, and the flies, warmed by the sunshine, buzzed gaily along the walls. All were happy -- plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people -- adult men and women -- never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world, given to all creatures to enjoy -- a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love. No, what they considered sacred and important were their own devices for wielding power over each other.”