"Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is."
-Leo Tolstoy; Anna Karenina
"...having gone to a soiree where she thought she would meet him,
and finding that he was not there, she clearly understood from
the sadness which came over her that she was deceiving herself,
that his pursuit was not only not unpleasant for her but
constituted the entire interest of her life."
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
"There are people who, on meeting a successful rival in whatever it may be, are ready at once to turn their eyes from everything good in him and to see only the bad;
then there are people who, on the contrary, want most of all to find the qualities in this successful rival that enabled him to defeat them, and with aching hearts seek only the good."
-Leo Tolstoy; Anna Karenina
