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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

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.

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.

If you love me as you say you do,' she whispered, 'make it so that I am at peace.

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?

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

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

I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

Love those you hate you.

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.

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

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...

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.

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

Everything intelligent is so boring.

Every heart has its own skeletons.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Teach French and unteach sincerity.

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