“Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him
the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there wassomething in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!"
he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland?
And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he
was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St.
George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the
pause of happiness”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Vronsky saw nothing and no one. He felt himself as a king, not because she had made an
impression on Anna-he did not yet believe that-but because the impression she had made on
him gave him happiness and pride.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One need only posit some threat to the public tranquility and any action can be justified.
All the horrors of the reign of terror were based on concern for public tranquility.” ―
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how
constrained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the
Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up
and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast
away.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you're a good man, to forget what you've said, as I
forget it," she said at last.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No one is satisfied with his fortune,and everyone is satisfied with his wit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
