“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty
or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess
of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the
production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union
among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and
progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life. And this
knowledge is open to everyone.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always
talk about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In that brief glance Vronsky had time to notice the restrained animation that played over
her face and fluttered between her shining eyes and the barely noticeable smile that curved
her red lips. It was as if a surplus of something so overflowed her being that it expressed itself
beyond her will, now in the brightness of her glance, now in her smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I turned my attention to every thing that was done by people who claimed to be Christians,
I was horrified.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't
got.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Come, what did I say, repeat it? he would ask. But I could never repeat anything, so
ludicrous it seemed that he should talk to me, not of himself or me, but of something else, as
though it mattered what happened outside us. Only much later I began to have some slight
understanding of his cares and to be interested in them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own insignificance, aware of being
but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet at the same time was conscious of his strength as a
part of that enormous whole.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he
was here to be where she was.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties,
deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been
darkness, sputtered, grew dim and went out for ever.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And then all at once love turns up, and you're done for, done for.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
