“The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had
really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end
everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it
was terrible but true”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not
forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
She had done all she could - she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shyly,
blissfully. He put his arms around her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God.
And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to
love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the
guiltlessness of suffering.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday,
and there was the day before...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When I came to you out of all that dust and heat and toil, I positively smelt violets at once.
But not the sweet violet - you know, that early dark violet that smells of melting snow and
spring grass.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed
extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed,
he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that
moment fit into the rest of his life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Society in itself is no great harm, but unsatisfied social aspirations are a bad and ugly
business. We must certainly accept, and we will.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to
understand or pity him”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to
torture ourselves and one another?”
―
Leo Tolstoy