“The acquisition by dishonest means and cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was
incapable of clearly defining the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. 'Like the profits
made by banks,' he went on. 'This is evil, I mean, the acquisition of enormous fortunes without
work, as it used to be with the spirit monopolists. Only the form has changed. Le roi est mort,
vive le roi! Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just
another way of making money without work.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present
frame of mind might never change.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You are all misleading one another, and are yourselves deceived. The sun does not go
round the earth, but the earth goes round the sun, revolving as it goes, and turning towards
the sun in the course of each twenty-four hours, not only Japan, and the Philippines, and
Sumatra where we now are, but Africa, and Europe, and America, and many lands besides.
The sun does not shine for some one mountain, or for some one island, or for some one sea,
nor even for one earth alone, but for other planets as well as our earth. If you would only look
up at the heavens, instead of at the ground beneath your own feet, you might all understand
this, and would then no longer suppose that the sun shines for you, or for your country alone.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. "You know that I am going in
order to be where you are," said he. "I cannot do otherwise."
―
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
“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he
said was very clever or very stupid.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is
not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good
which it is in my power to put into it!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity
gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And what was worst of all was that *It* drew his attention to itself not in order to make him
take some action but only that he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and
without doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.
And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolations -- new screens --
and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but then they immediately
fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It* penetrated them and nothing could veil
*It*.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no
happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When I came to you out of all that dust and heat and toil, I positively smelt violets at once.
But not the sweet violet - you know, that early dark violet that smells of melting snow and
spring grass.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But I'm married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one's wife, if one loves her,
as some one has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“-Why are you so sad? Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
