“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess
even to himself, though it was so strong that now his passion was even doing battle with his
love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the
human will.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
O ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to the right and left of
you; you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves until ye become humble and joyful as
children. Then will ye find Me, and having found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds,
and looking out from the great world within to the little world without, you will bless everything
that is, and find all is well with time and with you. KRISHNA.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“These loaves, pigeons, and two little boys seemed unearthly. It all happened at the same
time: a little boy ran over to a pigeon, glancing over at Levin with a smile; the pigeon flapped
its wings and fluttered, gleaming in the sunshine among the snowdust quivering in the air,
while the smell of freshly baked bread was wafted out of a little window as the loaves were put
out. All this together was so extraordinarily wonderful that Levin burst out laughing and crying
for joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the
inner workings of his very soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anna smiled,as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love. . .”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover
in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry
discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be still the same wall between the
holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on scolding her for my
own terror, and being remorseful for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason
why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything
that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has
the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it." - Levin”
―
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
“This child, with his naive outlook on life was the compass which showed them the degree
of their departure from what they knew but did not want to know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Olenin always took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten tracks.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of
it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know...I know because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
