“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”

― Leo Tolstoy

What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Every heart has its own skeletons.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“But one thing I beg of you, look on me as your friend; and if you want some help, advice, or simply want to open your heart to someone- not now, but when things are clearer in your heart- think of me.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'I shall be happy, if I am able...' Pierre was confused. 'Don't speak to me like that; I'm not worth it!' cried Natasha... 'Hush, hush your whole life lies before you,' he said to her. 'Before me! No! All is over for me,' she said, with shame and humiliation. 'All over?' he repeated. 'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your love.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“When the examination was over, the doctor looked at his watch, and then Praskovya Fyodorovna informed Ivan Ilyich that it must of course be as he liked, but she had sent today for a celebrated doctor, and that he would examine him, and have a consultation with Mihail Danilovich (that was the name of his regular doctor). 'Don't oppose it now, please. This I'm doing entirely for my own sake,' she said ironically, meaning it to be understood that she was doing it all for his sake, and was only saying this to give him no right to refuse her request. He lay silent, knitting his brows. He felt that he was hemmed in by such a tangle of falsity that it was hard to disentangle anything from it. Everything she did for him was entirely for her own sake, and she told him she was doing for her own sake what she actually was doing for her own sake as something so incredible that he would take it as meaning the opposite.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.”

― 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

“Society in itself is no great harm, but unsatisfied social aspirations are a bad and ugly business. We must certainly accept, and we will.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment.”

― Leo Tolstoy

He felt like a man who, after straining his eyes to peer into the remote distance, finds what he was seeking at his very feet. All his life he had been looking over the heads of those around him, while he had only to look before him without straining his eyes.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“The difference between real material poison and intellectual poison is that most material poison is disgusting to the taste, but intellectual poison, which takes the form of cheap newspapers or bad books, can unfortunately sometimes be attractive.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Those are the men,' added Bolkonsky with a sigh which he could not suppress, as they went out of the palace, 'those are the men who decide the fate of nations.”

― Leo Tolstoy


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