“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain
what they are, and also because wisdom needs no violence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The Bible legend tells us that the absence of toil - idleness - was a condition of the first
man's state of bliss before the Fall. This love of idleness has remained the same in the fallen
man, but the curse still lies heavy on the human race....because our moral nature is such that
we are unable to be idle and at peace.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that
this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god
as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except
God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is often said that the invention of terrible weapons of destruction will put an end to war.
That is an error. As the means of extermination are improved, the means of reducing men whohold the state conception of life to submission can be improved to correspond. They may
slaughter them by thousands, by millions, they may tear them to pieces, still they will march to
war like senseless cattle. Some will want beating to make them move, others will be proud to
go if they are allowed to wear a scrap of ribbon or gold lace.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once
disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are
people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which
he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon.
Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now,"
he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men's esteem?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that in order to know love one must make a mistake and then correct it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting,” he thought, “but as long as it
remains in its naked form we observe it from the height of our spiritual life and despise it;
and—whether one has fallen or resisted—one remains what one was before. But when that
same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and æsthetic feeling and demands our
worship—then we are swallowed up by it completely and worship animalism, no longer
distinguishing good from evil. Then it is awful!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care.
Such is the quality of bees...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
