“... in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for
happiness rests only on oneself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem
presented itself - Death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop it. And plan it, so as to be
able to leave it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Never, never marry, my friend. Here’s my advice to you: don’t marry until you can tell
yourself that you’ve done all you could, and until you’ve stopped loving the woman you’ve
chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you’ll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry
when you’re old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that’s good and lofty in you will be lost.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and
not as one would like them to be. -Dolly
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But to us of a later generation...it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should
have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English
policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg hardly treated. We cannot grasp the connections
between these circumstances and the bare fact of murder and violence, nor why the duke's
wrongs should induce thousands of men from the other side of Europe to pillage and murder
the inhabitants of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and to be slaughtered by them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Quos vilt perdere dementat' Whome the gods wish to destroy, they first drive made
(Latin).”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”
―
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
“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of
pleasure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his army because he
wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as unjust as to say that he had brought
his troops to Moscow because he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change
of life or by a change of conscience.”
―
Leo Tolstoy