“I don’t count life as life without love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was nice,
very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words,
or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside
one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt
about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on
gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out
his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his
bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's
room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and
truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But live while you live, tomorrow you die...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“These principles laid down as in variable rules: that one must pay a card sharper, but
need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that
one must never cheat any one, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult,
but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good,
but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his
heart was at peace and he could hold his head up.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If a man lives, then he believes in something. If he didn't believe that one must live for
something, then he wouldn't live. If he doesn't see and doesn't understand the illusoriness of
the finite, he believes in the infinite; if he does understand the illusoriness of the finite, he must
believe in the infinite without which one cannot live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go
on until you remember what was there before you were in the world. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He stepped down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, yet he saw
her as one sees the sun, without looking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought
of the writer or reformer. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one is willing to change themselves.”
―
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
“I don't give a damn unless I'm fond of a person;but I'd sacrifice my life for those I am fond
of; the rest I'd throttle if they stood in my way...And you may not believe me but if I still set a
value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will
regenarate me, purify me and elevate me. But you don't understand that.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Our existence is now so entirely in contradiction with the doctrine of Jesus, that only with
the greatest difficulty can we understand its meaning. We have been so deaf to the rules of life
that he has given us, to his explanations,—not only when he commands us not to kill, but
when he warns us against anger, when he commands us not to resist evil, to turn the other
cheek, to love our enemies; we are so accustomed to speak of a body of men especially
organized for murder, as a Christian army, we are so accustomed to prayers addressed to the
Christ for the assurance of victory, we who have made the sword, that symbol of murder, an
almost sacred object (so that a man deprived of this symbol, of his sword, is a dishonored
man); we are so accustomed, I say, to this, that the words of Jesus seem to us compatible
with war. We say, "If he had forbidden it, he would have said so plainly." We forget that Jesus
did not foresee that men having faith in his doctrine of humility, love, and fraternity, could ever,
with calmness and premeditation, organize themselves for the murder of their brethren.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only
an atmosphere.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always
talk about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
