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I just finished reading the English translation of the masterpiece Anna Karenina by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and want to share with you a few sentences that strikes me as marvelous. Some of them are proverbial. Some are vivid descriptions. I am surprised to find that the people a century ago thought the same way the people do today. The notion that people are just the same, past or present, here and there, is confirmed. The people today are still struggling with handling situations that existed hundreds years ago. Are these situations simply impossible to cope with or people just do not progress? I think it is the latter. It is a shame.

Let’s enjoy these remarkable sentences.  

1. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

This statement is well known. Everybody quotes it without questioning. I hold it true as well. It is only a statement so that we have to demand it to have the precision and accuracy of mathematics and physics. Math and physics require 100% accuracy but statement of society only demands 80% accuracy to the best.

Have you ever seen two families that are alike? I have not. Apply the logic in this statement, that means all the families we see are unhappy families. This may sound cruel, but it is almost true. Every family has its own trouble, indeed. Do you think your family is a happy one? You may. If that is the case, congratulations! That means you have evolved enough to understand and accept the imperfections of life.

2. "Ah, Vronsky! When are you coming to the regiment? We can’t let you off without a supper. You’re one of the old set," said the colonel of his regiment. "I can’t stop, awfully sorry, another time," said Vronsky, and he ran upstairs towards his brother’s box.

When someone offers an invitation and we do not really want to accept, we would politely say “another time”. Now I know that at least the Russians say the same thing. People are all the same, again. This notion is helpful when we deal with non-Chinese without prejudice.

3. "I wonder at the parents! They say it’s a marriage for love." "For love? What antediluvian notions you have! Can one talk of love in these days?" said the ambassador’s wife.

I got it. Marriage for love was even antediluvian at Tolstoy’s time. How can we blame the people today? But some still adhere to the idea of marriage for love. Are they too naïve or idealistic?

4. It was a long while before Levin could soothe his wife. At last he succeeded in calming her, only by confessing that a feeling of pity, in conjunction with the wine he had drunk, had been too much for him, that he had succumbed to Anna’s artful influence, and that he would avoid her.

This is what man does after causing jealousy in his wife by interacting with other women. At the end the wife will be pacified and man will, of course, not miss the next opportunity to interact with a charming woman.

 

5. The plump, well-fed little baby, on seeing her mother, as she always did, held out her fat little hands, and with a smile on her toothless mouth, began, like a fish with a float, bobbing her fingers up and down the starched folds of her embroidered skirt, making them rustle.

This is the exquisite description of the details only the great writers can do.

6. Birthdays are of no importance to a rational being. It’s a day like any other on which one has to do one’s work."

Basically it is. But many women still do not get it. They want gift on her birthday. Then men have to fake the emotion. Nowadays every event could be set in the calendar so that it is not the man who remembers the woman’s birthday, it is the smart phone. Technology helps!

7. Since a man combining all the qualifications was not to be found, it was at least better that the post be filled by an honest than by a dishonest man.

Sounds familiar? This is the philosophy of appointing people on positions.

8. "Oh, by the way," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "I wanted to ask you, some time when you see Pomorsky, to drop him a hint that I should be very glad to get that new appointment of secretary of the committee of the amalgamated agency of the southern railways and banking companies."

Sounds familiar? Not only Chinese try to get appointments by “guanxi”. All the people do.

9. "Dolly!" he said, sobbing now; "for mercy’s sake, think of the children; they are not to blame! I am to blame, and punish me, make me expiate my fault.”

Again this is what a man usually says after having an affair. He will get forgiveness from his wife by pretending to be remorseful and citing the child’s happiness to soften his wife’s heart. It works most of the time.

10. She at once began talking to him with French exaggerated politeness, applauding him for having such a delightful daughter, extolling Kitty to the skies before her face, and calling her a treasure, a pearl, and a consoling angel.

Can you do this? It is so phony but it works most of the time.

11. For a long while she could hardly believe that their dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so little moment to either.

Couples argue about anything and everything, no matter how trivial it is. They may get angry at each other when they do not share the same opinion of a character in a soap opera. If you do not see this familiar, you are still too young. You will.

12. Suppose you’re married, you love your wife, but you’re fascinated by another woman...

Haha. C’est la vie!

13. Abstractly, theoretically, she did not merely justify, she positively approved of Anna’s conduct. As is indeed not unfrequent with women of unimpeachable virtue, weary of the monotony of respectable existence, at a distance she not only excused illicit love, she positively envied it.

Tolstoy said this. It is up to the ladies to judge its correctness. Hypocrisy can be tiring.

14. The other slightly disagreeable fact was that the new head of his department, like all new heads, had the reputation already of a terrible person, who got up at six o’clock in the morning, worked like a horse, and insisted on his subordinates working in the same way.

Well, if you do not want to work hard, why not just quit the job? You want the money but not want to work hard? Luckily, there are many places in Canada you can really do this, like in the Transit Company.

15. His wife’s staying away in the country was very agreeable to Stepan Arkadyevitch from every point of view: it did the children good, it decreased expenses, and it left him more at liberty.

Attention, ladies! This is what men think.

16. Levin could not call her mother-in-law mother without a sense of profaning his feeling for his dead mother.

Gentlemen! Have you had this feeling?

17. There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.

Think carefully and you will see Tolstoy is right.