“Ever since the day Pierre had driven home from the Rostovs with Natasha's look of gratitude still fresh in his mind, stared up at the comet in the sky and felt the range of new possibilities opening up before him, he had stopped worrying about the agonizing problem
of the vanity and senselessness of all earthly things. The terrible questions, 'Why?' 'What's it all about?', which had always assailed him whatever he was doing, had now been replaced, not by different questions or answers to the old ones, but by an image of her. If he heard people prattling on about nothing, or did so himself, if he read or heard about something that reminded him of human wickedness or folly, he no longer despaired; he had stopped wondering why people bothered with anything at all when life was so short and uncertain. He had only to think of her as he had last seen her, and all
his doubts melted away, not because she had any answers to the questions that had been haunting him, but because her image transported him instantly into another realm of sweetness, light and active spirituality, where there was no question of being in the right or in the wrong, a region of beauty and love well worth living for. If he came across some worldly abomination he would say to himself, "So-
and-so's robbing the state and the Tsar while the state and the Tsar weigh him down with honours, is he? Well, let him get on with it
she smiled at me yesterday, she asked me round, and I love her, and nobody will ever know.”
― War and Peace
of the vanity and senselessness of all earthly things. The terrible questions, 'Why?' 'What's it all about?', which had always assailed him whatever he was doing, had now been replaced, not by different questions or answers to the old ones, but by an image of her. If he heard people prattling on about nothing, or did so himself, if he read or heard about something that reminded him of human wickedness or folly, he no longer despaired; he had stopped wondering why people bothered with anything at all when life was so short and uncertain. He had only to think of her as he had last seen her, and all
his doubts melted away, not because she had any answers to the questions that had been haunting him, but because her image transported him instantly into another realm of sweetness, light and active spirituality, where there was no question of being in the right or in the wrong, a region of beauty and love well worth living for. If he came across some worldly abomination he would say to himself, "So-
and-so's robbing the state and the Tsar while the state and the Tsar weigh him down with honours, is he? Well, let him get on with it
she smiled at me yesterday, she asked me round, and I love her, and nobody will ever know.”
― War and Peace
“-I'm reviewing it, the stooped man said, and started to plod off.
-You read it?
-No, he said over his shoulder, -but I know the son of a bitch who wrote it.”
― The Recognitions
-You read it?
-No, he said over his shoulder, -but I know the son of a bitch who wrote it.”
― The Recognitions
“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”
― Crime and Punishment
― Crime and Punishment
“The Mona Lisa, the Mona Lisa....Leonardo had eye trouble....Art couldn't explain it....But now we're safe, since science can explain it. Maybe Milton wrote Paradise Lost because he was blind? And Beethoven wrote the Ninth Symphony because he was deaf...”
― The Recognitions
― The Recognitions
“The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat, drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs—good food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all this, seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
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