brian karl sayen's Key Ideas from Anna Karénina ...
by graf Leo Tolstoy

Without the knowledge of what I am and why I am here it is impossible to live.

In an infinity of time, in an infinity of matter, and an infinity of space a bubble-organism emerges which will exist for a little time and then burst, and that bubble am I.

If goodness has a cause it is no longer goodness; if it has consequences, a reward, it is no longer goodness either.

The word 'people' is so vague. District office clerks, school teachers, and one peasant out of thousand perhaps. The rest of the eighty million people, not only don't express their will, but haven't the faintess idea what it is to express their will about. What right do we then to say that it is the will of the people.

Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career. It is difficult to be in love with a women and do anything. There is only one way of loving in comfort and without hindrance-marriage.