“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such
love there can be no sort of tragedy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however
cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“People often think the question of non-resistance to evil by force is a theoretical one, which
can be neglected. Yet this question is presented by life itself to all men, and calls for some
answer from every thinking man. Ever since Christianity has been outwardly professed, this
question is for men in their social life like the question which presents itself to a traveler when
the road on which he has been journeying divides into two branches.
He must go on and he cannot say: I will not think about it, but will go on just as I did before.
There was one road, now there are two, and he must make his choice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes gazed wonderingly
upon the world, whose horizon hides this real life from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou
hast prayed for, demanded as thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am
that which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I lay in thee
grieving because thou didst not recognize me; sometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes,
and extended my arms calling thee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that
thou shouldst rebel against the iron chains which bound thee to the earth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog
himself so as not to see the misery of his position.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“God gave the day, God gave the strength.”
―
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
“Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase.
Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love
my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed
it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason!
Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who
hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of
loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or
desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“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
