Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina Quotes

#1. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.

Leo Tolstoy

#2. Art is bad when 'you see the intent and get put off.' (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself.
from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Joel Carmichael

#3. The more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.

Leo Tolstoy

#4. If you can forgive me, forgive
me,' said her eyes, 'I am so happy.'
'I hate them all, and you, and myself,' his eyes
responded.

Leo Tolstoy

#5. An artist must know the reality he is depicting in its minutest detail. In my opinion we have only one shining example of that - Count Leo Tolstoy.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#6. If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.

Leo Tolstoy

#7. Now every time he turned to her, he bent his head, as though he would have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble submission and dread. 'I would not offend you' his eyes seemed every time to be saying, 'but I want to save myself, and I don't know how.

Leo Tolstoy

#8. And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.

Leo Tolstoy

#9. Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."

- Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina}

Leo Tolstoy

#10. Count Vronsky: I love you!
Anna Karenina: Why?
Count Vronsky: You can't ask Why about love!

Leo Tolstoy

#11. He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.

Leo Tolstoy

#12. Every drama requires a cast. The cast may be so huge, as in Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina,' that the author or editor provides a list of characters to keep them straight. Or it may be an intimate cast of two.

Nancy Kress

#13. Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."

- Vronksy {Anna Karenina}

Leo Tolstoy

#14. Yes, I suppose so, answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it.

Leo Tolstoy

#15. All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

Leo Tolstoy

#16. It's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

Leo Tolstoy

#17. The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.

Leo Tolstoy

#18. I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right.

Leo Tolstoy

#19. The aim of civilization is to enable us to get enjoyment out of everything.

Leo Tolstoy

#20. He [Vronsky] himself felt that, except that crazy fellow married to Kitty Shcherbatsky, who, quite irrelevantly had with rabid virulence told him a lot of pointless nonsense, every nobleman whose acquaintance he had made had become his partisan.

Leo Tolstoy

#21. 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

Leo Tolstoy

#22. He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.

Leo Tolstoy

#23. If he had a reason for preferring Liberalism to the Conservatism of many in his set, it was not that he considered Liberalism more reasonable, but because it suited his manner of life better.

Leo Tolstoy

#24. Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Leo Tolstoy

#25. He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it

Leo Tolstoy

#26. I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten
death.

Leo Tolstoy

#27. I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

Leo Tolstoy

#28. I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.

Leo Tolstoy

#29. Intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party ...

Leo Tolstoy

#30. I don't count life as life without love

Leo Tolstoy

#31. But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.

Leo Tolstoy

#32. Levin tried to drink a little coffee, and put a piece of roll into his mouth, but his mouth could do nothing with it. He took the piece out of his mouth, put on his overcoat and went out to walk about again.

Leo Tolstoy

#33. All families are happy, all families are alike.

Leo Tolstoy

#34. Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand

Leo Tolstoy

#35. Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,

Leo Tolstoy

#36. My writing is like those little carved baskets made in prisons ...

Leo Tolstoy

#37. Oblonsy was fond of a pleasant joke, and sometimes liked to perplex a simple-minded man by observing that if you're going to be proud of your ancestry, why stop short at Prince Rurik and repudiate your oldest ancestor - the ape?

Leo Tolstoy

#38. That's my one desire, to be caught," answered Vronsky, with his serene,
good-humored smile. "If I complain of anything it's only that I'm not caught
enough, to tell the truth. I begin to lose hope.

Leo Tolstoy

#39. But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.

Leo Tolstoy

#40. 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

#41. He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [ ... ] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

Leo Tolstoy