#karenina

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 ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#despair #leo-tolstoy #love #sadness #beauty

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 ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#leo-tolstoy #life #life-philosophy #life

And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#dishonesty #intellect #pride #stupidity #tolstoy

It will pass, it will all pass, we're going to be so happy! If our love could grow any stronger it would grow stronger because there is something horrifying in it, ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love

Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said it. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love #vronsky #love

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. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just another way of making money without work. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#banks #earnings #labor #leo-tolstoy #monopolies

In my considered opinion, salary is payment for goods delivered and it must conform to the law of supply and demand. If, therefore, the fixed salary is a violation of this law - as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together and both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other only earns two thousand , or when lawyers and hussars, possessing no special qualifications, are appointed directors of banks with huge salaries - I can only conclude that their salaries are not fixed according to the law of supply and demand but simply by personal influence. And this is an abuse important in itself and having a deleterious effect on government service. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#economics #government #salaries #supply-and-demand #tolstoy

If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#goodness #religion #religion

What is the matter with you?" asked Shcherbatsky. "Nothing much, but there is little to be happy about in this world." "Little? You'd better come with me to Paris instead of going to some Mulhausen or other. You'll see how jolly it will be!" "No, I have done with that; it is time for me to die." "That is a fine thing!" said Shcherbatsky, laughing. "I am only just beginning to live." "Yes, I thought so too till lately; but now I know that I shall soon die." Levin was saying what of late he had really been thinking. He saw death and the apprroach of death in everything; but the work he had begun interested him all the more. After all, he had to live his life somehow, til death came. Everything for him was wrapped in darkness; but just because of the darkness, feeling his work to be the only thread to guide him through the darkness, he seized upon it and clung to it with all his might. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#death #humor #levin #death

Art is bad when ‘you see the intent and get put off.’ (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself. from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy ↗

— Joel Carmichael

#art #goethe #karenina #leo #tolstoy