All of us as rational beings can’t do anything else but live for our belly.
 Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877). copy citation

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Author Leo Tolstoy
Source Anna Karenina
Topic living
Date 1877
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Constance Garnett
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1399/1399-h/1399-h.htm

Context

“And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it! “Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That’s comprehensible and rational. All of us as rational beings can’t do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a sudden the same Fyodor says that one mustn’t live for one’s belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a hint I understand him! And I and millions of men, men who lived ages ago and men living now—peasants, the poor in spirit and the learned, who have thought and written about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing—we are all agreed about this one thing:” source