“Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad
moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments
too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his "Symposium" -
both kinds of love serve a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only
the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For
such love there can be no tragedy. "Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good bye," and that's
the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there
everything is clear and pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each time of life has its own kind of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy
in fifteen minutes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did worse than break the law, she broke the rules”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And what was worst of all was that *It* drew his attention to itself not in order to make him
take some action but only that he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and
without doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.
And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolations -- new screens --
and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but then they immediately
fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It* penetrated them and nothing could veil
*It*.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Men never understand what honor is, though they're always talking about it”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love..." she repeated slowly, in a musing voice, and suddenly, while disentangling the
lace, she added: "The reason I dislike this word because it means such a great deal to me, far
more than you can understand.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand
that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You
can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
―
Leo Tolstoy
