How can one let it come to that? How can one not undo this ugly situation?' But now, when the disaster had fallen on his head, he not only did not think of how to undo the situation, but did not want to know about it at all.

Every monarch in the world, except the Emperor of China, wears a military uniform, and bestows the greatest rewards on the man who kills the greatest number of his fellow-creatures.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs.

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

And it's true that I lost my life here, over this curtain, as if I was storming a fortress. Can it be? How terrible and how stupid! It can't be! Can't be, but is.

Music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a certain condition.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

It's different for you and me. You study, you become enlightened; I study, I become confused.

There is nothing, nothing certain but the nothingness of all that is comprehensible to us, and the grandeur of something incomprehensible, but more important!

The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember things that have never happened.

I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my wife.

An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle.

Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a fresh wound he had only just received. But he was at home, and at home the very walls are a support.