He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars.

Como osaríamos nosotros, miserables pecadores como somos, pretender iniciarnos en los sagrados y terribles secretos de la Providencia mientras estos despojos mortales que nos cubren interponen entre nosotros y el Eterno un velo impenetrable?

Que valor podrían tener aquellas miserias ante la voluntad del Todopoderoso, sin cuya voluntad no cae ni un solo cabello de la cabeza del hombre?

They say: misfortunes, sufferings...well, if someone said to me right now, this minute: do you want to remain the way you were before captivity, or live through it all over again? For God's sake, captivity again and horsemeat! Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it's only here that the new and the good begins. As long as there's life, there's happiness. There's much, much still to come.

Pierre's madness consisted in not waiting, as he had formerly done, to discover personal attributes which he called "good qualities" in people before loving them: his heart overflowed with love, and by loving without cause he never failed to discover undeniable reasons for loving.

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.

Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were kindhearted, and because they - friends from childhood - had to think about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over.... But those tears were pleasant to them both.

All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.

But believe me, my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all.