“marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight
of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“if they hadn’t both been pretending, but had had what is called a heart-to-heart talk, that is,
simply told each other just what they were thinking and feeling, then they would just have
looked into each other’s eyes, and Constantine would only have said: ‘You’re dying, dying,
dying!’ – while Nicholas would simply have replied: ‘I know I’m dying, but I’m afraid, afraid,
afraid!’ That’s all they would have said if they’d been talking straight from the heart. But it was
impossible to live that way, so Levin tried to do what he’d been trying to do all his life without
being able to, what a great many people could do so well, as he observed, and without which
life was impossible: he tried to say something different from what he thought, and he always
felt it came out false, that his brother caught him out and was irritated by it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Therefore, all these causes-billions of causes-coincided so as to bring about what
happened. And consequently none of them was the exclusive cause of the event, but the
event had to take place simply because it had to take place.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as though wondering at the boldness of his question;
but the irrepressible, quivering brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said
it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'd rather end up wishing I hadn’t than end up wishing I had.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not
forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we do
them”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Slavery, you know, is nothing else than the unwilling labor of many. Therefore to get rid of
slavery it is necessary that people should not wish to profit by the forced labor of others and
should consider it a sin and a shame. But they go and abolish the external form of slavery and
arrange so that one can no longer buy and sell slaves, and they imagine and assure
themselves that slavery no longer exists, and do not see or wish to see that it does, because
people still want and consider it good and right to exploit the labor of others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to drink
-- he recovered.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy
in fifteen minutes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We are conscious of the force of man's life, and we call it freedom”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They had to return to the one sure and never-failing resource- slander.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“she smiled at him, and at her own fears.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
