“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must do one of two tings: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and
then stick up for one's rights in it;or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as i
do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the
unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup which is already full. The
most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any
idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before
him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“nothing has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the
heathen, and has hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the
disregard of [non-resistance] by men calling themselves Christians, and the permission of war
and violence to Christians.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be
the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a
moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity
gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives
me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The man who ten years earlier and one year later was considered a bandit and outlaw is
sent a two-day sail from France, to an island given into his possession, with his guards and
several million, which are paid to him for some reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A
quiet, secluded life in the country with possibility of being useful to people.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To get rid of an enemy one must love him. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The main reason for the terrible cruelty between men today, apart from the absence
religion, is still the refined complexity of life which shields people from the consequences of
their actions. However cruel Attila, Genghis Khan and their followers may have been, the act
of killing people personally, face to face, must have been unpleasant: the wailing relatives and
the presence of the corpses. And thus their cruelty was restrained. Nowadays we kill people
through such a complex process of communication, and the consequences of our cruelty are
so carefully removed and concealed from us, that there is no restraint on the bestiality of the
action.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by
words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things
each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to
excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he
took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's
opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him
an amused and gentle smile.
―
Leo Tolstoy
