“He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better
than before.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason and knowledge which man
establishes with the infinite world around him, and which binds his life to that infinity and
guides his actions.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him
the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there wassomething in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!"
he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland?
And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he
was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St.
George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is bad? What is good? What should one love, what hate? Why live, and what am I?
What is lie,what is death? What power rules over everything?" he asked himself. And there
was no answer to any of these questions except one, which was not logical and was not at all
an answer to these questions. This answer was: "You will die--and everything will end. You will
die and learn everything--or stop asking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Universal military service may be compared to the efforts of a man to prop up his falling
house who so surrounds it and fills it with props and buttresses and planks and scaffolding
that he manages to keep the house standing only by making it impossible to live in it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She danced the dance so well, so well indeed, so perfectly, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who
handed her at once the kerchief she needed in the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she
laughed as she watched that slender and graceful little countess, reared in silk and velvet,
belonging to another world than hers, who was yet able to understand all that was in Anisya
and her father and her mother and her aunt and every Russian soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of
deceiving himself and persuading himself that he repented of his conduct. He could not at this
date repent of the fact that he, a handsome, susceptible man of thirty-four, was not in love with
his wife, the mother of five living and two dead children, and only a year younger than himself.
All he repented of was that he had not succeeded better in hiding it from his wife. But he felt all
the difficulty of his position and was sorry for his wife, his children, and himself. Possibly he
might have managed to conceal his sins better from his wife if he had anticipated that the
knowledge of them would have had such an effect on her. He had never clearly thought out
the subject, but he had vaguely conceived that his wife must long ago have suspected him of
being unfaithful to her, and shut her eyes to the fact. He had even supposed that she, a worn-
out woman no longer young or good-looking, and in no way remarkable or interesting, merely
a good mother, ought from a sense of fairness to take an indulgent view. It had turned out
quite the other way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The doctor arrived towards dinnertime and said, of course, that although recurring
phenomena might well elicit apprehension, nonetheless there was, strictly speaking, no
positive indication, yet since neither was there any contraindication, it might, on the one hand,
be supposed, but on the other hand it might also be supposed. And it was therefore necessary
to stay in bed, and although I don't like prescribing, nevertheless take this and stay in bed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences.
The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the
knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop
you from understanding the basic rules of life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp
from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read.
And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his
heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know...I know because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
