“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).”

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

“True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason and knowledge which man establishes with the infinite world around him, and which binds his life to that infinity and guides his actions.”

“When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”

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

“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”

“Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.”

“The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.”

“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”

“I often think how unfairly life's good fortune is sometimes distributed. ”

“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.”

“Anna Arkadyevna read and understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that it, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself.”

“The difference between what he had been then and what he now was, was enormous...Then he was free and fearless...now he felt himself caught in the meshes of a stupid, empty, valueless, frivolous life...He remembered how proud he was at one time of his straightforwardness, how he had made a rule of always speaking the truth...and he was now sunk deep in lies...lies considered as truth by all who surrounded him.”

“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.”

“Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that there is such a thing as death.”