“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

“Neglecting your health can prevent you from serving people, and too much attention to your body and its health can bring the same results. In order to find the middle way, you should take care of your body only to the extent that doing so helps you to serve others, and does not stop you from serving them. No illness can prevent a person from what he has to do. If you cannot work, then give your love to people. Illnesses of the mind are much more dangerous than illnesses of the body. —MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO”

“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.”

“Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.”

“You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”

“Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the pause of happiness”

“Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one is willing to change themselves.”

“The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.”

But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was not thinking of the meaning of his life.

“As a house can be only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on, so carnal love is only legitimate, reasonable, and lasting when it is based on the respect and love of one human being for another.”

“The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?”

“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.”

“He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.”

“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”

“The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.”