“It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been looking forward to.”

“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.”

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

“in infinite space and time everything develops, becomes more perfect and more complex, is differentiated",is to say nothing at all. Those are all words with no meaning, for in the infinite is neither complex nor simple, no forward nor backward, or better or worse.”

“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.”

“To live in the needs of the day, find forgetfulness.”

“To improve ourselves, to move toward that goal, perfection, that puts no less a demand on us for being unattainable, requires solitude, removal from the concerns of everyday life. And yet constant solitude renders self-improvement impossible, if not pointless. A balance must be struck between meditating in solitude and then applying this to your everyday life.”

“The march of humanity, springing as it does from an infinite multitude of individual wills, is continuous.”

“And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did.”

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”

“Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox. ”

“Every reform by violence is to be deprecated, because it does little to correct the evil while men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.”

“Everything I know, I know because of love.”

“In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.”

“I don't think badly of people. I like everybody, and I'm sorry for everybody.”