Quotes About Introspection

He looked at people as if they were things. A nervous young man across from him...came to hate him for that look. The young man lit a cigarette from his, tried talking to him, and even jostled him, to let him feel that he was not a thing but a human being, but Vronsky went on looking at him as at a lampost, and the young man grimaced, feeling that he was losing his self-possession under the pressure of this non-recognition of himself as a human being...

Stepan Arkadyevitch felt exactly the difference that Pyotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his salvation; in Petersburg he felt himself a man of the world again.

But I am alive still. Now what's to be done? what's to be done?" he said in despair.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has outgrown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it.

Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one is willing to change themselves.

Levin tried to drink a little coffee, and put a piece of roll into his mouth, but his mouth could do nothing with it. He took the piece out of his mouth, put on his overcoat and went out to walk about again.

Life as it is leaves one no peace.

Great common truths are disclosed to man only when he is alone: they are the revelation made by solitude in the thick of collective action.

I tell you for the last time: turn all your attention to yourself, lay chains upon your feelings, and seek blessedness not in passions but in your own heart...the source of blessedness is not outside, but inside us...

I endeavor to recall the happy comforting dreams interrupted by my returning to consciousness of reality, but to my astonishment so soon as I recapture the thread of my former reverie I find it impossible to go on with it and, most astonishing of all, my imaginings no longer afford me any pleasure.

That debauchery was not a good thing in a married man did not even occur to him [Tsar Nicholas I], and he would have been very surprised if anyone had condemned him for it. But, even though he was convinced that he had acted as he ought, he was left with some sort of unpleasant aftertaste, and, to stifle that feeling, he began thinking about something that always soothed him: about what a great man he was.

He had but to call to mind what he had been three months before and what he was now. To call to mind with what regularity he had been going downhill for every possibility of hope to be shattered.

I do value my idea and my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can have something great—ideas, work—it's all dust and ashes.

To live an honest life you have to strive hard, get involved, fight, make mistakes, begin something and give it up, begin again, struggle endlessly, and suffer loss. As for tranquility — it's spiritual baseness.

Non penso? Non c'è giorno e ora in cui non pensi e non mi rimproveri perché penso... Perché questi pensieri possono far impazzire. Far impazzire.

Everything within him and around him seemed confused, senseless, and loathsome. But in this very loathing for everything around him, Pierre took a sort of irritating pleasure.

I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done to me?'—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.

Levin felt more and more that all his thoughts about marriage, all his dreams of how he would arrange his life, were mere childishness, and that it was something he had not understood before, and now understood still less, though it was being accomplished over him; spasms were rising higher and higher in his breast, and disobedient tears were coming to his eyes.

In the depths of his heart he knew that he was dying but, so far from growing used to the idea, he simply did not and could not grasp it.

in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full.

I ragionamenti lo portavano a dubbi e gli impedivano di vedere quel che si doveva e quel che non si doveva fare. Quando invece non pensava, ma viveva, sentiva incessantemente nell'animo suo la presenza d'un giudice infallibile che decideva quale di due azioni possibili fosse migliore e quale peggiore, e, appena agiva non così come si doveva, lo sentiva immediatamente.

Then these moments of perplexity began to recur oftener and oftener, and always in the same form. They were always expressed by the questions: What is it for? What does it lead to?

One who pays too much attention to what other people say about him will never find peace.