“There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life.”

“We should always try to find those things which do not separate us from other people but which unite us. To work against each other, to be angry and turn your back on each other, is to work against nature. —MARCUS AURELIUS”

“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”

“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.”

“Why do i live? In the infinity of space, and infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity. When you understand the laws of these mutations, you'll understand why you live.”

“The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life. And this knowledge is open to everyone.”

“I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible.”

“Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,’ he thought. And suddenly at this thought of death a whole series of most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitsky and began to walk up and down before it.”

“I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my wife.”

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

“Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions. Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family.”

“War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous...”

“Anna smiled,as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love. . .”

“Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered.”

“We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire attention is devoted to it.”