“Why, of course," objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. "But that's just the aim of civilization—to
make everything a source of enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the
stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long
wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash-tray,a manuscript-book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant
a doubt of the possibility of arranging this new life, of which he had been dreaming on the
road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: 'No, you're not going
to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as
you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to
amend, and falls, and everlasting expectations, of a happiness which you won't get, and which
isn't possible for you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite
ordinary occurrence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men's esteem?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement
to rulers chosen by the masses.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the
most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is,
forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could
not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the
dream of daily life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not
so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My writing is like those little carved baskets made in prisons...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“marveling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight
of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
