The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it was terrible but true
effort life death true end anna-karenina mental useless begin made forgotten leo-tolstoy terrible
In everything, almost in everything, I wrote I was guided by the need of collecting ideas which, linked together, would be the expression of myself, though each individual idea, expressed separately in words, loses its meaning, is horribly debased when only one of the links, of which it forms a part, is taken by itself. But the interlinking of these ideas is not, I think, an intellectual process, but something else, and it is impossible to express the source of this interlinking directly in words; it can only be done indirectly by describing images, actions, and situations in words.
writing leo-tolstoy
All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.
diversity beauty charm anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
It's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.
deeds good anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present frame of mind might never change.
literature russia leo-tolstoy
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
sadness despair anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.
labor work capitalism honest anna-karenina hierarchy leo-tolstoy
The acquisition by dishonest means and cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was incapable of clearly defining the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. 'Like the profits made by banks,' he went on. 'This is evil, I mean, the acquisition of enormous fortunes without work, as it used to be with the spirit monopolists. Only the form has changed. Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just another way of making money without work.
labor work banks anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.
enjoyment civilization anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
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
life life-philosophy anna-karenina leo-tolstoy
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