“at one time, a freethinker was a man who had been brought up in the conceptions of religion, law and morality, who reached freethought only after conflict and difficulty. But now a new type of born freethinkers has appeared, who grow up without so much as hearing that there used to be laws of morality, or religion, that authorities existed... In the old days, you see, if a man - a Frenchman, for instance- wished to get an education, he would have set to work to study the classics, the theologians, the tragedians, historians and philosophers- and you can realize all the intellectual labour involved. But nowadays he goes straight for the literature of negation, rapidly assimilates the essence of the science of negation, and thinks he's finished.

Leo Tolstoy

“Speransky, either because he appreciated Prince Andrey's abilities or because he thought it as well to secure his adherence, showed off his calm, impartial sagacity before Prince Andrey, and flattered him with that delicate flattery that goes hand in hand with conceit, and consists in a tacit assumption that one's companion and oneself are the only people capable of understanding all the folly of the rest of the world and the sagacity and profundity of their own ideas.”

Leo Tolstoy

“I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act; I realized that even if all the people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgments must be based-on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not according to progress but according to my own heart.”

Leo Tolstoy

“And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grieg, and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out forever.”

Leo Tolstoy

Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I am going in order to be where you are," said he. "I cannot do otherwise."

Leo Tolstoy

“In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.”

Leo Tolstoy

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”

Leo Tolstoy

“Send him to the devil, I'm busy.”

Leo Tolstoy

“Life is fragile and absurd.

Leo Tolstoy

“The story of Ivan Ilyich life was of the simplest, most ordinary and therefore most terrible". Tolstoy defines living an ordinary life as terrible - I really do have to agree!”

Leo Tolstoy

“Is it possible to love a woman who will never understand the profoundest interests of my life? Is it possible to love a woman simply for her beauty, to love the statue of a woman?”

Leo Tolstoy

“The vocation of every man and woman is to serve people. ”

Leo Tolstoy

“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive. A living man knows himself not otherwise than as wanting, that is, he is conscious of his will. And his will, which constitutes the essence of his life, man is conscious of and cannot be conscious of otherwise than as free.”

Leo Tolstoy

“As soon as she had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself - what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for - was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him. He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by that same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped on his shoulders.

Leo Tolstoy

“She danced the dance so well, so well indeed, so perfectly, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who handed her at once the kerchief she needed in the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she watched that slender and graceful little countess, reared in silk and velvet, belonging to another world than hers, who was yet able to understand all that was in Anisya and her father and her mother and her aunt and every Russian soul.”

Leo Tolstoy


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