“In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.”

“... in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.”

“There was no solution, save that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: One must live in the needs of the day--that is, forget oneself.”

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...”

“And I, too, am the same… only there is no love in my heart, or desire for love, no interest in work, not contentment in myself. And how remote and impossible my old religious enthusiasms seem now… and my former abounding life! What once seemed so plain and right – that happiness lay in living for others – is unintelligible now. Why live for others, when life has not attractions even for oneself?”

“That one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself.”

“Oh no, Papa, Kitty objected warmly. Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stah. Perhaps, he said, pressing her arm with his elbow. But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows anything about it.”