Quotes from book
Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy Original title Анна Каренина (Russian, 1877)

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger.

Leo Tolstoy photo

“I think… if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Variant: When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.
Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

“But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. I have that right, haven't I?”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

“There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Teach French and unteach sincerity.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

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

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

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

- Vronksy {Anna Karenina}”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy photo

““If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more,” he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her.
“No; how so?” she replied. “He's seen a great deal, anyway; he's cultured?”
“It's an utterly different culture—their culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures.””

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Vronky and Anna discussing the visiting Prince, Part 4, Chapter 3
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, wile calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Part II, Chapter 8
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Stephan Arkadievich chose neither his attitudes nor his opinions, no, the attitudes and opinions came to him on their own, just as he chose neither the style of his hat nor of his coats but got what people were wearing.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Part 1, Chapter 3
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“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 book Anna Karenina

Anna’s thoughts about Liza, Part III, Chapter 13
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love — and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires — longing. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely la constation d'un fait”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

The establishing of a fact.
Pt. IV, ch. 4
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Epigraph
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. VIII, ch. 19
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“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 book Anna Karenina

Pt. VIII, ch. 19
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Leo Tolstoy photo

“To all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were all the product of official activity.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Part IV, Chapter 6
Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)
Context: The new commission for the inquiry into the condition of the native tribes in all its branches had been formed and dispatched to its destination with an unusual speed and energy inspired by Alexey Alexandrovitch. Within three months a report was presented. The condition of the native tribes was investigated in its political, administrative, economic, ethnographic, material, and religious aspects. To all these questions there were answers admirably stated, and answers admitting no shade of doubt, since they were not a product of human thought, always liable to error, but were all the product of official activity. The answers were all based on official data furnished by governors and heads of churches, and founded on the reports of district magistrates and ecclesiastical superintendents, founded in their turn on the reports of parochial overseers and parish priests; and so all of these answers were unhesitating and certain. All such questions as, for instance, of the cause of failure of crops, of the adherence of certain tribes to their ancient beliefs, etc.—questions which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine, are not, and cannot be solved for ages—received full, unhesitating solution.