“We expect rewards for goodness, and punishments for the bad things which we do. Often,
they are not immediately”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement
to rulers chosen by the masses.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Do not be interested in the quantity of people who respect and admire you, but in their
quality. If bad people dislike you, so much the better. —LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences.
The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the
knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop
you from understanding the basic rules of life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to
be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his
kindness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are such repulsive faces in the world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Her glance, the touch of her hand, set him aflame. He kissed the palm of his hand where
she had touched it, and went home, happy in the sense that he had got nearer to the
attainment of his aims that evening...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I ask one thing: I ask the right to hope and suffer as I do now."
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Not a word, not a movement of yours will I ever forget, nor can I...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything
is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone.”
―
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
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy