“There is nothing, nothing certain but the nothingness of all that is comprehensible to us,
and the grandeur of something incomprehensible, but more important!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the
achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“the same question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible; and that I can't know, and
so I can't live," Levin said to himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot
reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of
outside matters.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him
took away the beauty of what he saw.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...there was apparent in all a sort of anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a consciousness
of some great, unfathomable mystery being accomplished... the most solemn mystery in the
world was being accomplished. Evening passed, night came on. And the feeling of suspenseand softening of the heart before the unfathomable did not wane, but grew more intense. No
one slept.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we do
them”
―
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
“In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete
discord between the spouses or loving harmony.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only
an atmosphere.”
―
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