“There lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of
fear, like the line separating the living from the dead.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a
Russian novelist, writer, essayist, philosopher, Christian anarchist, pacifist, educational
reformer, moral thinker, and an influential member of the Tolstoy family. As a fiction writer
Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his
masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina; in their scope, breadth and realistic
depiction of Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realistic fiction. As a moral
philosopher he was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through his work The
Kingdom of God is Within You, which in turn influenced such twentieth-century figures as
Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Source: Wikipedia”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was clear that everything considered important and good was insignificant and repulsive,
and that all this glamour and luxury hid the old well-known crimes, which not only remained
unpunished but were adorned with all the splendor men can devise.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?
―
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
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the
best happiness was already in the past.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and
always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone he had a
dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others
present it would be still worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But one thing I beg of you, look on me as your friend; and if you want some help, advice, or
simply want to open your heart to someone- not now, but when things are clearer in your
heart- think of me.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'I shall be happy, if I am able...' Pierre was
confused.
'Don't speak to me like that; I'm not worth it!' cried Natasha...
'Hush, hush your whole life lies before you,' he said to her.
'Before me! No! All is over for me,' she said, with shame and humiliation.
'All over?' he repeated. 'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the
world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your
love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The acquisition by dishonest means and cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was
incapable of clearly defining the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. 'Like the profits
made by banks,' he went on. 'This is evil, I mean, the acquisition of enormous fortunes without
work, as it used to be with the spirit monopolists. Only the form has changed. Le roi est mort,
vive le roi! Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just
another way of making money without work.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our
dreams.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In my considered opinion, salary is payment for goods delivered and it must conform to the
law of supply and demand. If, therefore, the fixed salary is a violation of this law - as, for
instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together and both equally well trained and
efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other only earns two thousand , or when
lawyers and hussars, possessing no special qualifications, are appointed directors of banks
with huge salaries - I can only conclude that their salaries are not fixed according to the law of
supply and demand but simply by personal influence. And this is an abuse important in itself
and having a deleterious effect on government service.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of
bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining
that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The rivalry of the European states in constantly increasing their forces has reduced them
to the necessity of having recourse to universal military service, since by that means the
greatest possible number of soldiers is obtained at the least possible expense. Germany first
hit on this device. And directly one state adopted it the others were obliged to do the same.
And by this means all citizens are under arms to support the iniquities practiced upon them; allcitizens have become their own oppressors.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to
examine it. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
