“Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible.”

“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”

“Society in itself is no great harm, but unsatisfied social aspirations are a bad and ugly business. We must certainly accept, and we will.”

“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”

“They haven’t an idea what happiness is; they don’t know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappiness—no life at all”

“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”

“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped something of it.”

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

“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.”

“The most important acts, both for the one who accomplishes them and for his fellow creatures, are those that have remote consequences.”

“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.”

“It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences. The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop you from understanding the basic rules of life.”

“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”

“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

“You're not going to be different ... you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.”