“I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormentor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And the moujiks? How do the moujiks die?”
―
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
“But it was not only by this feeling, as Varvara thought, that he was guided. Mingling with
his pride, with his need always to be first, was another motive, at which Varvara did not guess
- a truly religious urge. His disillusionment in Mary (his betrothed), whom he had imagined
such a saint, his feeling of outrage was so cruel that he sank into despair; and despair led him
- whither? To God, to the faith of his childhood, which had never lost its hold upon him.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other
because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was
astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such
circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke
was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of
Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Like the majority of irreproachably virtuous women, wearying often of the monotony of a
virtuous life, Dolly from a distance excused illicit love, and even envied it a little.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men's esteem?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All is over...I have nothing but you, remember that.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed
there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any
farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the
historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the
standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for
which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was only at her prayers that she felt able to think calmly and clearly either of Prince
Andrey or Anatole, with a sense that her feelings for them were as nothing compared with her
feel of worship and awe of God.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor
humility nor purity”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And I, too, am the same... only there is no love in my heart, or desire for love, no interest
in work, not contentment in myself. And how remote and impossible my old religious
enthusiasms seem now... and my former abounding life! What once seemed so plain and right
– that happiness lay in living for others – is unintelligible now. Why live for others, when life
has not attractions even for oneself?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I do value my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing
but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can
have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
