"At the advent of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the human heart: one very reasonably invites a man to consider the nature of the peril and the means of escaping it; the other, with a still greater show of reason, argues that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general march of events, and it is better therefore to shut one's eyes to the disagreeable until it actually comes, and to think instead of what is pleasant. When a man is alone he generally listens to the first voice; in the company of his fellow-men, to the second."

"A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul."

"Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them."

"There lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of fear, like the line separating the living from the dead."

"I often think with regret of that fresh, beautiful feeling of boundless, disinterested love which came to an end without having ever found self-expression or return. It is strange how, when a child, I always longed to be like grown-up people, and yet how I have often longed, since childhood's days, for those days to come back to me!"

"Este incredibil cA¢t de completAƒ este iluzia care ne face sAƒ credem cAƒ frumuseA£ea este A®n genere bunAƒtate."

"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way."

"Everyone had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire."

"Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the pause of happiness."

"Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself."

"I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgements must be based on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart."

"If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life."

"He was not thinking that the Christian law which he had wanted to follow all his life prescribed that he forgive and love his enemies, but the joyful feeling of love and forgiveness of his enemies filled his soul."

"War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it."

"The worker picked up Pakhom's spade, dug a grave, and buried him - six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount of land a man needs."

"If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."

"Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life."

"Power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand."

"Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment."

"He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began."

"Chance created the situation, genius made use of it."

"Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it."

"...those children were already beginning to repay her care by affording her small joys. These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold."

"...suffering and freedom have their limits...those limits are very near together."

"As a house can be only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on, so carnal love is only legitimate, reasonable, and lasting when it is based on the respect and love of one human being for another."

"Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the greatest pleasure in his life."

"But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass."

"Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity."

"There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday, and there was the day before..."

"One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees..."

"Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity...for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary, and the activity itself, which at first seemed so great, ever lessened and lessened till it vanished. But now...when he began to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he no longer felt any joy at the thought of his activity, he felt confident that his work was necessary, saw that it progressed far better than formerly, and that it was always growing more and more."

"If a man decides that it is better for him to resist the demands of a present feeble love, in the name of another, of a future manifestation, he deceives either himself or other people, and loves no one but himself. Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love."

"Art is a human activity consisting in this that one man consciously by means of external signs hands on to others feelings he has worked through and other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them."

"The prison inspector and the warders, though they had never understood or gone into the meaning of these dogmas and of all that went on in church, believed that they must believe, because the higher authorities and the Tsar himself believed in it. Besides, though faintly (and themselves unable to explain why), they felt that this faith defended their cruel occupations. If this faith did not exist it would have been more difficult, perhaps impossible, for them to use all their powers to torment people, as they were now doing, with a quiet conscience. The inspector was such a kind-hearted man that he could not have lived as he was now living unsupported by his faith."

"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."

"Will the freshness, lightheartedness, the need for love, and strength of faith which you have in childhood ever return? What better time than when the two best virtues -- innocent joy and the boundless desire for love -- were the only motives in life?"

"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed."

"War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous..."

"The General belonged to the learned type of military men who believed that liberal and humane views can be reconciled with their profession. But being by nature a kind and intelligent man, he soon felt the impossibility of such a reconciliation."

"A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep."

"Seize the moments of happiness, Love and be Loved!That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly!"

"But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else's that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive."

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

"In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning."

"True life is lived when tiny changes occur."

"We are asleep until we fall in Love!"

"Society in itself is no great harm, but unsatisfied social aspirations are a bad and ugly business. We must certainly accept, and we will."

"Man is meant for happiness and this happiness is in him in the satisfaction of the daily needs of his existence."

"He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished, he died."

"Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid."