“Higher and higher receded the sky, wider and wider spread the streak of dawn, whiter
grew the pallid silver of the dew, more lifeless the sickle of the moon...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to
examine it. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in
consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world,
obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and
constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both
forgot everything but their love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In that brief glance Vronsky has time to notice the restrained animation that played over
her face and fluttered between her shining eyes and the barely noticeable smile that curved
her red lips. It was as if a surplus of something so overflowed her being that it expressed itself
beyond her will, now in the brightness of her glance, now in her smile. She deliberately
extinguished the light in her her eyes, but it shone against her will in a barely noticeable
smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Reason is often the slave of sin; it strives to justify it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy
in fifteen minutes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You're not going to be different ... you're going to be the same as you've always been; with
doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and
everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“it is hard for anyone who is dissatisfied not to blame some one else, and especially the
person nearest of all to him, for the ground of his dissatisfaction.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior
sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should
live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and
a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their
living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned
and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set
belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves
unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“According to the biblical tradition the absence of work -- idleness -- was a condition of the
first man's state of blessedness before the Fall. The love of idleness has been preserved in
fallen man, but now a heavy curse lies upon him, not only because we have to earn our bread
by the sweat of our brow, but also because our sense of morality will not allow us to be both
idle and at ease. Whenever we are idle a secret voice keeps telling us to feel guilty. If man
could discover a state in which he could be idle and still feel useful and on the path of duty, he
would have regained one aspect of that primitive state of blessedness. And there is one such
state of enforced and irreproachable idleness enjoyed by an entire class of men -- the military
class. It is this state of enforced and irreproachable idleness that forms the chief attraction of
military service, and it always will.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked,
would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say,
for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon
as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new
and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal
before us.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
