“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”

“Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had been the friend and companion of his early youth. They were fond of one another in spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another who have been together in early youth. But in spite of this, each of them—as is often the way with men who have selected careers of different kinds—though in discussion he would even justify the other's career, in his heart despised it. It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he had seen him come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as every one did, laughed complacently and good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without complacency and sometimes angrily.”

“It will pass, it will all pass, we're going to be so happy! If our love could grow any stronger it would grow stronger because there is something horrifying in it,”

“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.”

“The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember things that have never happened.”

“I suffered most from the feeling that custom was daily petrifying our lives into one fixed shape, that our minds were losing their freedom and becoming enslaved to the steady passionless course of time.”

“Reason is often the slave of sin; it strives to justify it.”

“Do not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and desires are engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through the rough wilderness of life, which is far from Me.”

“If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: you can become better yourself”

“Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that there is such a thing as death.”

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

“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”

“There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way.”

“As soon as she had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself - what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for - was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him. He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by that same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped on his shoulders.

“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.”