Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina (1877)

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She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments.

Leo Tolstoy
There was something in her higher than what surrounded her. There was in her the glow of the real diamond among glass imitations. This glow shone out in her exquisite, truly enigmatic eyes. The weary, and at the same time passionate, glance of those eyes, encircled by dark rings, impressed one by its perfect sincerity. Everyone looking into those eyes fancied he knew her wholly, and knowing her, could not but love her.

Leo Tolstoy
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.

Leo Tolstoy
He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.

Leo Tolstoy
The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...

Leo Tolstoy
I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

Leo Tolstoy
He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love.

Leo Tolstoy
There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.

Leo Tolstoy
He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.

Leo Tolstoy
When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.

Leo Tolstoy
Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.

Leo Tolstoy
He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.

Leo Tolstoy
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

Leo Tolstoy
There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him.

Leo Tolstoy
Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

Leo Tolstoy
You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!

Leo Tolstoy
God forgive me everything!' she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling...

Leo Tolstoy
She [Anna] was doing what she always did when she saw him [Vronsky]—comparing the image of him in her imagination (incomparably superior, and impossible in reality) with him as he was.

Leo Tolstoy
It will pass, it will all pass, we're going to be so happy! If our love could grow any stronger it would grow stronger because there is something horrifying in it,

Leo Tolstoy
Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it.

Leo Tolstoy
And whatever people might say about the time having come when young people must arrange their future for themselves, she could not believe it any more than she could believe that loaded pistols could ever be the best toys for five-year-old children.

Leo Tolstoy
But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.

Leo Tolstoy
Don't you know that you are all my life to me?...But peace I do not know, and can't give to you. My whole being, my love...yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune...or of happiness-what happiness!...Is it impossible?" Vronksy

Leo Tolstoy