Anna Karenina Quotes

“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his "Symposium" - both kinds of love serve a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For such love there can be no tragedy. "Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good bye," and that's the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there everything is clear and pure.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Scese, evitando di guardarla a lungo, come si fa col sole; ma vedeva lei, come si vede il sole, anche senza guardare.”
― Lev Tolstoj

“Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky.
"Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world."
"Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!"
"No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die."
"That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live."
"Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die."
Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“They haven’t an idea what happiness is; they don’t know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappiness—no life at all”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Lord have mercy! Pardon and help us!" he repeated the words that suddenly and unexpectedly sprang to his lips. And he, an unbeliever, repeated those words not with his lips only. At that instant he knew that neither his doubts nor the impossibility of believing with his reason- of which he was conscious- all prevented his appealing to God. It all flew off like dust. To whom should he appeal, if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, and his love, to be?”
― Leo Tolstoy

“He understood that feeling of Levin's so well, knew that for Levin all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included alll the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human failings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class - herself alone - had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I don’t count life as life without love”
― Leo Tolstoy

“The aim of civilization is to enable us to get enjoyment out of everything.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“He [Vronsky] himself felt that, except that crazy fellow married to Kitty Shcherbatsky, who, quite irrelevantly had with rabid virulence told him a lot of pointless nonsense, every nobleman whose acquaintance he had made had become his partisan.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“My writing is like those little carved baskets made in prisons…”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Levin tried to drink a little coffee, and put a piece of roll into his mouth, but his mouth could do nothing with it. He took the piece out of his mouth, put on his overcoat and went out to walk about again.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Se há tantas cabeças quantas são as maneiras de pensar, há de haver tantos tipos de amor quantos são os corações.”
― Liev Tolstói, Anna Karenina

“If he had a reason for preferring Liberalism to the Conservatism of many in his set, it was not that he considered Liberalism more reasonable, but because it suited his manner of life better.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“I’ve never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same.
‘But the Magdalen?’
‘Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Qualquer que seja ou venha a ser o nosso destino, somos nós que o fazemos, e não nos lamentamos.”
― Liev Tolstói, Anna Karenina

“One day, an unusually exciting event interrupted the rhythm of our regular middle-class teenage lives. A Russian woman, the mother of a girl in our class, was run over by a New York City bound train right in the center of town. Our classmate left school in the middle of the semester. The gossip was that the woman must have thrown herself under the train. The adults whispered about reasons, usual ones, but my friends and I were too busy planning what to wear to the prom to wonder about the savagery of adult passion.”
― Inna Swinton, The Many Loves of Mila

“Oblonsy was fond of a pleasant joke, and sometimes liked to perplex a simple-minded man by observing that if you're going to be proud of your ancestry, why stop short at Prince Rurik and repudiate your oldest ancestor - the ape?”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“İsviçre dağlarındakine benzeyen o mavi sisi anımsıyor ve biliyorum. Bu sis, çocukluğun bitmek üzere olduğu o kaygısız dönemde her şeyin üstünü kaplar ve o çok büyük, mutlu, neşeli dairenin içinden gittikçe daralan bir yol çıkar, ışıklı ve güzel görünse de bu dar yola girmek hem keyifli, hem de müthiş bir şeydir.”
― L.N. Tolstoy

“Hayatının bütün izleri sanki ona sarılmış şöyle diyordu: "Hayır, bizi bırakıp gitmeyeceksin, başka birisi olmayacaksın, nasılsan öyle kalacaksın: Kuşkularınla, kendinden sonsuz hoşnutsuzluğunla, sonuçsuz kalan kendini düzeltme deneyimlerinle, yaşadığın düşüşlerle ve senin için olanaksız, sana nasip olmayacak sonsuz bir mutluluk beklentisiyle.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Se você tiver qualquer pensamento para mim que você vai me dar de volta a minha paz!''
''Não pode haver paz para nós, só miséria, e a maior felicidade.”
― Liev Tolstói

“Böyle işte, diyordu. Dostumuz Konstantin Dmitriç ne yetenekli bir gençti. Oysa şimdi nerede o eski Konstantin Dmitriç! O zamanlar bilimi de severdi. Üniversiteden çıktığında insanlara özgü düşünceleri vardı. Şimdi ise yeteneklerinin yarısı kendi kendini aldatmaya, öteki yarısı da bu aldatışı haklı göstermeye yönelmiş durumda. iletişim yayınları. syf :441.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“With six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be calm. One got sick, another might get sick, a third lacked something, a fourth showed signs of bad character, and so on, and so on. Rarely, rarely would there be short periods of calm. But these troubles and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the only possible happiness. Had it not been for them, she would have remained alone with her thoughts of her husband, who did not love her. But besides that, however painful the mother's fear of illnesses, the illnesses themselves, and the distress at seeing signs of bad inclinations in her children, the children repaid her griefs with small joys. These joys were so small that they could not be seen, like gold in the sand, and in her bad moments she saw only griefs, only sand; but there were also good moments, when she saw only joys, only gold.

Now, in her country solitude, she was more aware of these joys. Often, looking at them, she made every possible effort to convince herself that she was mistaken, that as a mother she was partial to her children; all the same, she could not but tell herself that she had lovely children, all six of them, each in a different way, but such as rarely happens -- and she was happy in them and proud of them.”
― Leo Tolstoy