و أدركت بطلان رأيها في أن الرداء هو عماد المرأة ومقوّم جمالها ، فالمرأة الجميلة جميلة مهما لبست ومهما ارتدت، ولن يزيدها اللباس الحسن إلا أناقة - Leo Tolstoy

One of the most popular superstitions consists in the belief that every man is endowed with definite qualities—­that some men are kind, some wicked; some wise, some foolish; some energetic, some apathetic, etc. This is not true. We may say of a man that he is oftener kind than wicked; oftener wise than foolish; oftener energetic than apathetic, and vice versa. But it would not be true to say of one man that he is always kind or wise, and of another that he is always wicked or foolish. And yet we thus divide people. This is erroneous. Men are like rivers—­the water in all of them, and at every point, is the same, but every one of them is now narrow, now swift, now wide, now calm, now clear, now cold, now muddy, now warm. So it is with men. Every man bears within him the germs of all human qualities, sometimes manifesting one quality, sometimes another; and often does not resemble himself at all, manifesting no change. With some people these changes are particularly sharp. And to this class Nekhludoff belonged.

عندما يتحاب شخصان رجل وإمرأة، فلابد أن يمر غرامهما بلحظة يسمو فيها عن الحس الشهواني، ويتطهر، وتتوحد الروحان روحاً واحدة.

Having acknowledged the measure of the good to be pleasure, i.e., beauty, the European upper classes went back in their comprehension of art to the gross conception of the primitive Greeks which Plato had already condemned. And with this understanding of life, a theory of art was formulated.