“The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The acquisition by dishonest means and cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was
incapable of clearly defining the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. 'Like the profits
made by banks,' he went on. 'This is evil, I mean, the acquisition of enormous fortunes without
work, as it used to be with the spirit monopolists. Only the form has changed. Le roi est mort,
vive le roi! Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just
another way of making money without work.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my
wife.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A better life can only come when the consciousness of men is altered for the better; and
therefore, those who wish to improve life must direct all their efforts towards changing both
their own and other people’s consciousness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could,
and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise
you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...
Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness
either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“nothing has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the
heathen, and has hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the
disregard of [non-resistance] by men calling themselves Christians, and the permission of war
and violence to Christians.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's not those who are handsome we love, but those we love who are handsome.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“People often think the question of non-resistance to evil by force is a theoretical one, which
can be neglected. Yet this question is presented by life itself to all men, and calls for some
answer from every thinking man. Ever since Christianity has been outwardly professed, this
question is for men in their social life like the question which presents itself to a traveler when
the road on which he has been journeying divides into two branches.
He must go on and he cannot say: I will not think about it, but will go on just as I did before.
There was one road, now there are two, and he must make his choice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And however much the princess was assured that in our time young people themselves
must settle their fate, she was unable to believe it, as she would have been unable to believe
that in anyone's time the best toys for five-year-old children would be loaded pistols.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Neglecting your health can prevent you from serving people, and too much attention to
your body and its health can bring the same results. In order to find the middle way, you
should take care of your body only to the extent that doing so helps you to serve others, and
does not stop you from serving them. No illness can prevent a person from what he has to do.
If you cannot work, then give your love to people. Illnesses of the mind are much more
dangerous than illnesses of the body. —MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO”
―
Leo Tolstoy
My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing
these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could
consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire
or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not
have know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish,
was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there
was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guessed of what it
consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked,
walked, till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was nothing ahead of me but
destruction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes
or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death--complete
annihilation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
