“Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out
for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better
than before.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rostov was not listening to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes dancing above the fire
and remembered the Russian winter with a warm, bright house, a fluffy fur coat, swift sleighs,
a healthy body, and all the love and care of a family. “And why did I come here?” he
wondered.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say,
events the reasonableness of which we do not understand).”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one
loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be....”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So they are even more frightened than we are,' he thought. 'Why, is this all that's meant by
heroism? And did I do it for the sake of my country? And was he to blame with his dimple and
his blue eyes? How frightened he was! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill
him? My hand trembled. And they have given me the St. George's Cross. I can't make it out, I
can't make it out!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
*"Splendid if I overcome My earthy passion, But if I succeed not, Still I have known
happiness!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only
one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with
only one thing: you can become better yourself”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite
ordinary occurrence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
