“Don't do anything that you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspaper the next day.”

“The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.”

“To see, in some measure, like God. His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him. We could almost say He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees.”

“When it comes to identifying a real leader, that task can be much easier. Don't listen to the claims of the person professing to be the leader. Don't examine his credentials. Don't check his title. Check his influence. The proof of leadership is found in the followers.

“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.”

“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.”

“I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”

“He who seeks one thing, and but one, May hope to achieve it before life is done. But he who seeks all things wherever he goes Must reap around him in whatever he sows A harvest of barren regret.”

“I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.”

“I don't want anyone who doesn't want me.”

“Just get it right, “it is not too late to dream”. You can do it now! This very moment, I mean right now! Let’s begin!”

“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. --”

“Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test... You will be tested by major changes, delayed promises, impossible problems, unanswered prayers, undeserved criticism, and even senseless tragedies.”

“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

“A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.”