“Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog
himself so as not to see the misery of his position.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The Bible legend tells us that the absence of toil - idleness - was a condition of the first
man's state of bliss before the Fall. This love of idleness has remained the same in the fallen
man, but the curse still lies heavy on the human race....because our moral nature is such that
we are unable to be idle and at peace.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of
happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that
happiness is the realization of desires.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why
not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that
someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves.
Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs
and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who
solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse,
deceive others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I often think how unfairly life's good fortune is sometimes distributed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and
laid to rest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most mentally deranged people are those who see in others indications of insanity
they do not notice in themselves.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest”
―
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
The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer
deceived me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life,
do not thinking about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long.
Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading me to my death. This is all I
can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie
―
Leo Tolstoy
