“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
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of
bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining
that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you love me as you say you do,' she whispered, 'make it so that I am at peace.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle
of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told
ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My brother's death: wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more
than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived and still less why he had
to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and
painful dying.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was nice,
very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words,
or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside
one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt
about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on
gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out
his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his
bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's
room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
