“Yes, there is something uncanny, demonic and fascinating in her.”

“Talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing what others have not seen.”

“We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?”

“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”

“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at you side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”

“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.”

“If you want to be Happy, BE”

“Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?”

“It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty.”

“By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there unnoticed."

“My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labor was the only thing men called their own.”

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay”

“Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.”

“If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side! ”