“...the aim of civilization is to translate everything into enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
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
“To speak of it would be giving importance to something that has none.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Art should cause violence to be set aside and it is only art that can accomplish this.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better
than before.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how
they should change. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as
always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember
things that have never happened.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be
the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a
moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Natasha, in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked, as women can walk, with
the more repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and
evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness,
flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All is over...I have nothing but you, remember that.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
