“Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement
to rulers chosen by the masses.”
―
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
“The pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in searching for it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need
an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre’s heart thrilled to these words as he gazed with shining eyes into the mason’s face.
He listened without interrupting or asking any questions, and with all his soul he believed what
this stranger was saying to him. Whether he was believing rational arguments coming from the
mason, or trusting more like a child in the persuasive intonation, the sense of authority, the
sincerity of the words spoken, the quavering voice that sometimes seemed on the verge of
breaking down, or the gleaming aged eyes grown old in that conviction, or the tranquillity, the
certainty and true sense of vocation radiating from the old man’s whole being and striking
Pierre very forcibly, given the state of his own debasement and despair – whatever was
happening to him, he longed to believe with all his soul, and he did believe and he felt a joyful
sense of calm, renewal and return to life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped
something of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to
happen”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should
be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's different for you and me. You study, you become enlightened; I study, I become
confused.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man is never such an egoist as at moments of spiritual exaltation, when it seems to him
that there is nothing in the world more splendid and fascinating than himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
