“It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship
to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a
religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a
person to exist without a religion than without a heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To get rid of an enemy one must love him. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
But he had done neither the one nor the other, yet he continued to live, think, and feel, had
even at that very time got married, experienced many joys, and been happy whenever he was
not thinking of the meaning of his life.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I weep for the past love
which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not know. Love remains, but not the old love; its
place remains, but it is all wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections
are still left, and gratitude; but...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped
something of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday,
and there was the day before...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional
types, and then—all the combinations made—they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin
to invent more natural, true figures.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“On earth, here on this earth, there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, in the
whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now the children of earth are—
eternally—children of the whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast
harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and higher
beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the Deity—the Supreme Power if
you prefer the term—is manifest? If I see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man,
why should i suppose it breaks off at me and does not go father and father? I feel that I cannot
vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall always exist and always have
existed. I feel that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world there is
truth”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe,
and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I can't praise a young lady who is alive only when people are admiring her, but as soon as
she is left alone, collapses and finds nothing to her taste--one who is all for show and has no
resources in herself”
―
Leo Tolstoy
