“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done
them.”
―
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
“How good is it to remember one's insignificance: that of a man among billions of men, of
an animal amid billions of animals; and one's abode, the earth, a little grain of sand in
comparison with Sirius and others, and one's life span in comparison with billions on billions of
ages. There is only one significance, you are a worker. The assignment is inscribed in your
reason and heart and expressed clearly and comprehensibly by the best among the beings
similar to you. The reward for doing the assignment is immediately within you. But what the
significance of the assignment is or of its completion, that you are not given to know, nor do
you need to know it. It is good enough as it is. What else could you desire?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need
an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with
his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as
he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and
makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“wisdom needs no violence...As it is we have played at war – that’s what’s vile! We play at
magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and
sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that
she can’t look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce...If there was none of
this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only when it was worth while going to certain
death, as it is now. Then there would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended
Michael Ivanovich.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The best solution is to be kind and good while ignoring the opinions of others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The doctor arrived towards dinnertime and said, of course, that although recurring
phenomena might well elicit apprehension, nonetheless there was, strictly speaking, no
positive indication, yet since neither was there any contraindication, it might, on the one hand,
be supposed, but on the other hand it might also be supposed. And it was therefore necessary
to stay in bed, and although I don't like prescribing, nevertheless take this and stay in bed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the
stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long
wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash-tray,a manuscript-book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant
a doubt of the possibility of arranging this new life, of which he had been dreaming on the
road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: 'No, you're not going
to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as
you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to
amend, and falls, and everlasting expectations, of a happiness which you won't get, and which
isn't possible for you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe,
and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.”
―
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
“He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it
unhindered and let it defend itself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread".
―
Leo Tolstoy
