Anna Karenina Audiobook Book 1 Chapter 1 quotes free

kenneth parnell ·

 

 

 

 

Anna Karenina quotes

  • Vengeance is mine; I will repay.
    • Epigraph
  • All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
    • Pt. I, ch. 1
    • Variant translations: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
      All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
  • There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.
    • Pt. 1, ch. 2
  • He knew she was there by the joy and fear that overwhelmed his heart.
    • Pt. I, ch. 9
  • He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
    • Pt. I, ch. 9
  • 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.
    • Part II, Chapter 8
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • Anna’s thoughts about Liza, Part III, Chapter 13
  • “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.”
    • Vronky and Anna discussing the visiting Prince, Part 4, Chapter 3
  • 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 [The establishing of a fact.]
    • Pt. IV, ch. 4
  • 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.
    • Part IV, Chapter 6
  • "Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be."
    • (voice of Anna) C. Garnett, trans. (New York: 2003), Part 7, Chapter 24 p. 685
  • Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
    • Pt. VIII, ch. 13
  • 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.
    • Pt. VIII, ch. 19
  • 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.'
    • Pt. VIII, ch. 19