“As it was before, so it was now; I need only be aware of God to live; I need only forget
Him, or disbelieve Him, and I died.
What is this animation and dying? I do not live when I lose belief in the existence of God. I
should long ago have killed myself had I not had a dim hope of finding Him. I live, really live,
only when I feel Him and seek Him. “What more do you seek?” exclaimed a voice within me.
“This is He. He is that without which one cannot live. To know God and to live is one and the
same thing. God is life.”
“Live seeking God, and then you will not live without God.” And more than ever before, all
within me and around me lit up, and the light did not again abandon me.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my
wife.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship
to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a
religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a
person to exist without a religion than without a heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as
one does the sun, without looking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his
reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of
that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands
he felt himself, his soul, and his love?
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of
truth.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Therein is the whole business of one’s life; to seek out and save in the soul that which is
perishing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power -- the soldiers who
fired, or transported provisions and guns -- should consent to carry out the will of these weak
individuals...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Ah, if everyone was as sensitive as you! There's no girl who hasn't gone through that. And
it's all so unimportant!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember
things that have never happened.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think badly of people. I like everybody, and I'm sorry for everybody.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
