A youngling opens up,

to a world in riddles.

I admire Tolstoy, not because of his work, which I have never read, but because of what he stood for. I believe that when people say it is a fantastic read, I can see it after a few pages; I don’t have the time to read the rest. Too many books lie around that I have started reading or are waiting patiently for my attention. I have the idle hope that one day I will take the time. I found this quote online, well, not this quote, but something similar. The quotes you find online are not always correct, but after some digging, I found the source and read the chapter till I found it. Russians are a mysterious folk; I wish they still were, now they are as predictable as the rest.

“I have met him. But he’s a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those uncouth new people one’s so often coming across nowadays, one of those free-thinkers you know, who are reared d’emblée in theories of atheism, scepticism, and materialism. In former days,” said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, “in former days the free – thinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to free – thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of born free – thinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Part 5, Chapter 9)

You can read the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1399