“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

“When politics and home life have become one and the same thing, [...] then,[...] it is evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.”

“The best solution is to be kind and good while ignoring the opinions of others.”

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

“Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the greatest pleasure in his life.”

“A better life can only come when the consciousness of men is altered for the better; and therefore, those who wish to improve life must direct all their efforts towards changing both their own and other people’s consciousness.”

“It seems that only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy.”

“Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.”

“he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness, he occasionally spent nights at his desk.”

“Luxury cannot be obtained other than by enslaving other people.”

“I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.”

“Though men in their hundreds of thousands had tried their hardest to disfigure that little corner of the earth where they had crowded themselves together, paving the ground with stones so that nothing could grow, weeding out every blade of vegetation, filling the air with the fumes of coal and gas, cutting down trees and driving away every beast and every bird -- spring, however, was still spring, even in the town. The sun shone warm, the grass, wherever it had not been scraped away, revived and showed green not only on the narrow strips of lawn on the boulevards but between the paving-stones as well, and the birches, the poplars and the wild cherry-trees were unfolding their sticky, fragrant leaves, and the swelling buds were bursting on the lime trees; the jackdaws, the sparrows and the pigeons were cheerfully getting their nests ready for the spring, and the flies, warmed by the sunshine, buzzed gaily along the walls. All were happy -- plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people -- adult men and women -- never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world, given to all creatures to enjoy -- a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love. No, what they considered sacred and important were their own devices for wielding power over each other.”

“But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest”

“That which constitutes the cause of the economic poverty of our age is what the English call over-production (which means that a mass of things are made which are of no use to anybody, and with which nothing can be done).”

“Self-conceit is a sentiment entirely incompatible with genuine sorrow, and it is so firmly engrafted on human nature that even the most profound sorrow can seldom expel it altogether. Vanity in sorrow expresses itself by a desire to appear either stricken with grief or unhappy or brave: and this ignoble desire which we do not acknowledge but which hardly ever leaves us even in the deepest trouble robs our grief of its strength, dignity and sincerity.”