“I work, I want to do something, but I had forgotten it must all end; I had forgotten--death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All were happy -- plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people -- adult men and
women -- never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this
spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world,
given to all creatures to enjoy -- a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to
love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important-- Now! It is the most important
time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with
whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and
the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into
this life!
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't
got.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to forgive, one must have lived through what I have lived through, and may God
spare her that.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What am I coming for?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I have
come to be where you are," he said; "I can't help it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What you spoke of just now was a mistake, not love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man can spend several hours sitting cross-legged in the same position if he knows that
noting prevents him from changing it; but if he knows that he has to sit with his legs crossed
like that, he will get cramps, his legs will twitch and strain towards where he would like to
stretch them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When Mother smiled, no matter how nice her face had been before, it became
incomparably nicer and everything around seemed to brighten up as well.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To improve ourselves, to move toward that goal, perfection, that puts no less a demand on
us for being unattainable, requires solitude, removal from the concerns of everyday life. And
yet constant solitude renders self-improvement impossible, if not pointless. A balance must be
struck between meditating in solitude and then applying this to your everyday life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
