“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot
reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot
carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine
law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot
even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize
the duty of what is called allegiance.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were spent in curing
debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist, whereas now all efforts are
employed, not in extirpating debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of
the consequences.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or
desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He saw either death or the approach of it everywhere. But his undertaking now occupied
him all the more. He had to live his life to the end, until death came. Darkness covered
everything for him; but precisely because of this darkness he felt that his undertaking was the
only guiding thread in this darkness, and he seized it and held on to it with all his remaining
strength.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“that in every individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that exists, and
that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything of a like nature to itself, and attains
this aim through love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of
wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to
one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power
is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and
senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better
than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are men who call land theirs, yet have never set eyes on that land and have never
trodden it. There are men who call other men theirs, but yet have never set eyes on the other
men, and their sole relation to those other men consists of doing them evil. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
