“We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, there is something uncanny, demonic and fascinating in her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is bad? What is good? What should one love, what hate? Why live, and what am I?
What is lie,what is death? What power rules over everything?" he asked himself. And there
was no answer to any of these questions except one, which was not logical and was not at all
an answer to these questions. This answer was: "You will die--and everything will end. You will
die and learn everything--or stop asking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing
these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which I could
consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire
or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not
have known what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a
wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that
there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guess of what
it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“she smiled at him, and at her own fears.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any
farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the
historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the
standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for
which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know, I know because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I can never forget what is my whole life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
