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Who really said it

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way

Written by Leo Tolstoy 1828–1910 · Russian novelist
Verified Free to reuse

It is the opening sentence of Anna Karenina, Part One, Chapter I — the novel Tolstoy serialised in The Russian Messenger from 1875 to 1877 and published as a book in 1878. This exact English wording is not Tolstoy’s own but Louise and Aylmer Maude’s: it appears verbatim in their Oxford World’s Classics translation, first published in 1918, and other translators worded the same Russian sentence quite differently.

Last verified 10 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Part One, Chapter I (1878), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, first published 1918. Verified by Quotle.info

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Work
Anna Karenina, Part One, Chapter I (opening sentence)
First published
Serialised in The Russian Messenger, 1875–1877; first book edition, Moscow, 1878
Translation
Louise and Aylmer Maude, The World’s Classics (Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford), first published 1918
Original Russian
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.

All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was upset in the Oblonskys’ house. Maude translation, 1918

The two sentences that open the novel, transcribed from the scanned World’s Classics text. The comma splice is Tolstoy’s own; the Russian original is given in full on Wikipedia ↗.

Scanned Oxford World’s Classics volume, Maude translation
Read Part One, Chapter I at the Internet Archive
Anna Karenina, trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude (World’s Classics, first published 1918)

How we verified it

  • The line is genuine and sourced. Wikiquote’s Leo Tolstoy page ↗ carries exactly this wording in its sourced quotations, cited to Anna Karenina, Pt. I, ch. 1, and lists the other translations as variants. It is not in the page’s Disputed section.
  • Matched against the translation itself. The Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford World’s Classics volume translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, first published 1918, opens Part One, Chapter I with this sentence word for word — the full scan is readable at the Internet Archive ↗.
  • Not the wording most readers know. Constance Garnett’s translation begins “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” — read the first line on Project Gutenberg ↗, where the translation is credited to Garnett.
  • Earlier still. Nathan Haskell Dole’s 1886 T. Y. Crowell translation ends the sentence differently again: “every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion” — see the 1886 scan ↗.
Public domain

Tolstoy’s Russian novel was serialised in 1875–1877 and published as a book in 1878, so the original text is long out of copyright. The English wording shown here is Louise and Aylmer Maude’s translation, first published in 1918 — before the 1931 United States cut-off — so this rendering is public domain in the US as well. Note that later translations (Pevear and Volokhonsky’s of 2000, for example) and the introductions, notes and revisions in modern reprints remain in copyright.

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Whose words are these, exactly?

Nobody disputes that Tolstoy wrote this sentence. What travels unlabelled is whose English it is — the line is quoted in at least three famous forms, and people routinely mix them, or credit a translator’s phrasing straight to Tolstoy as though he had written it that way.

Louise and Aylmer Maude, not Tolstoy translation

Tolstoy wrote in Russian. “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” is the Maudes’ rendering, confirmed at Part One, Chapter I of their Oxford World’s Classics translation, first published 1918 ↗.

Constance Garnett variant

Garnett’s translation opens “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” — a genuinely different sentence, and the one most English readers actually met. It is the text on Project Gutenberg ↗; Wikipedia dates her translation to 1901 ↗.

Nathan Haskell Dole first in English

The “resemble one another” half of the popular wording predates the Maudes. Dole’s 1886 T. Y. Crowell edition reads “All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion” — readable in the scan at the Internet Archive ↗.

Later translators and quote sites caution

Shortened forms such as “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” circulate with no translator credit at all — it is the rendering used, uncredited, on Wikipedia’s Anna Karenina principle page ↗. Later translations, including Pevear and Volokhonsky’s of 2000, are still under copyright.

The thought and the sentence are Tolstoy’s, written in Russian and published in 1878; the specific English words in this quotation are Louise and Aylmer Maude’s, given by Wikiquote as the primary form of the line, cited to Pt. I, ch. 1 ↗.

Context

Why this sentence keeps travelling

Most novels open on a scene. Tolstoy opens on a claim — a one-line theory of human misery — and only then turns to the Oblonsky household, where everything is already coming apart. The proposition is that happiness is monotonous and failure is inventive: there is one way to get a family right and countless ways to get it wrong. Whether the novel that follows proves the claim or quietly demolishes it is an argument readers have been having ever since.

The idea outgrew the book. Scientists and statisticians now speak of the “Anna Karenina principle” — a venture succeeds only if every one of many conditions is met, and fails if any single one is missed — a framing popularised by Jared Diamond in his 1997 book Guns, Germs and Steel ↗, where he used it to explain why so few wild animals were ever domesticated.

One sentence, three translators, three different famous quotations.

Read the full story

The English you know depends entirely on which translator you met first. Nathan Haskell Dole’s 1886 version — the earliest English translation listed by Wikipedia — reads “All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.” Constance Garnett’s reads “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Maudes combined the two halves that stuck.

Tolstoy’s Russian is plainer than any of them: Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему — literally, all happy families are similar to one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The comma splice that English teachers flag in the Maude version is Tolstoy’s own punctuation, faithfully preserved.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

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Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Anna Karenina, Maude translation (World's Classics)archive.org

Fully readable scan of the Oxford University Press / Humphrey Milford World's Classics volume translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, first published 1918 — the edition whose Part One, Chapter I matches this wording exactly.
Anna Karenina, Constance Garnett translationgutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg's free text, credited to translator Constance Garnett, whose opening line reads 'Happy families are all alike' — the rival famous wording.
Anna Karénina, Nathan Haskell Dole translation (1886)archive.org

Scan of the T. Y. Crowell edition of 1886, whose opening line ends 'unhappy after its own fashion' — the earliest English form of the sentence.
Leo Tolstoy — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations page citing this exact wording to Anna Karenina, Pt. I, ch. 1, and listing the competing translations as variants.
Anna Karenina — publication and translation historyen.wikipedia.org

Serialisation in The Russian Messenger 1875–1877, the 1878 book edition, and the dated list of English translators from Dole (1886) to Schwartz (2015).
The Anna Karenina principleen.wikipedia.org

The Russian original of the sentence, and how Jared Diamond turned it into a general principle of failure in Guns, Germs and Steel (1997).

The author

About Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910) wrote War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878), two books routinely named among the greatest novels ever written, and followed them with Resurrection (1899). A spiritual crisis in the 1870s turned him toward Christian anarchism and pacifism in works such as A Confession (1882) and The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894); the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901. He wrote in Russian, which is why the most famous sentence in his most famous novel exists in English only as a series of translators’ choices.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude, The World’s Classics (London: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford; first published 1918), pt. 1, chap. 1. Originally serialised in The Russian Messenger, 1875–1877; first book edition, Moscow, 1878.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’?” Last verified 10 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/all-happy-families-resemble-one-another-each-unhappy-family/

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