“And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as
usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To know God and to live is one and the same thing. God is life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It will pass, it will all pass, we're going to be so happy! If our love could grow any stronger it
would grow stronger because there is something horrifying in it,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over
the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No one is satisfied with his fortune,and everyone is satisfied with his wit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.”
―
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
“I think love, both kinds of love, which you remember Plato defines in his "Symposium" -
both kinds of love serve a touchstone for men. Some men understand only the one, some only
the other. Those who understand only the non-platonic love need not speak of tragedy. For
such love there can be no tragedy. "Thank you kindly for the pleasure, good bye," and that's
the whole tragedy. And for the platonic love there can be no tragedy either, because there
everything is clear and pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life
is possible at all.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was as if the main screw in his head, which held his whole life together, had become
stripped. The screw would not go in, would not come out, but turned in the same groove
without catching hold, and it was impossible to stop turning it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that
there is such a thing as death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in
consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world,
obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and
constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both
forgot everything but their love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
