“What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But all these hints at foreseeing what actually did happen on the French as well as on the
Russian side are only conspicuous now because the event has justified them. If the event had
not come to pass, these hints would have been forgotten, as thousands and millions of
suggestions and supposition are now forgotten that were current at the period, but have been
shown by time to be unfounded and so have been consigned to oblivion.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems
to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid and interesting than himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare
shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was
difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”
―
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
“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
“I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormentor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life which is the more free the
more abstract it's interests, and his elemental swarm-life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid
down for him”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At moments of departure and a change of life, people capable of reflecting on their actions
usually get into a serious state of mind. At these moments they usually take stock of the past
and make plans for the future.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp
from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read.
And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his
heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding
him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of
comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others
are surrounded by the same complexity as he is.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The goal of the artist is not to solve a question irrefutably, but to force people to love life in
all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
