“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.”
―
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
“This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by
words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things
each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to
excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he
took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's
opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him
an amused and gentle smile.
―
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
“There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed
there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.”
―
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
“But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the
moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red
bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a
light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the
instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What
for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her
on the head and dragged her down on her back
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Everything that I know, I know only because I love.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human
wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
