“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
“As often happens between people who have chosen different ways, each of them, while
rationally justifying the other's activity, despised it in his heart. To each of them it seemed that
the life he led was the only real life, and the one his friend led was a mere illusion.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his
own resources, would be able to bring up a child.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws
of man centered for her in one clear and simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught
us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do
with justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a
man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean
that thirty thousand men, not athletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two
hundred million vigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did worse than break the law, she broke the rules”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he was just what he used
to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed occupied not with what was before his
eyes but with something special of his own. The difference between his former and present
self was that formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to him, he had
puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to distinguish something at a distance. At
present he still forgot what was said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but
he now looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what was before him
and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing and hearing something quite different.
Formerly he had appeared to be a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been
inclined to avoid him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and sympathy
for others shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to whether they were as contented as
he was, and people felt pleased by his presence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No one is satisfied with his fortune,and everyone is satisfied with his wit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of
hearing her called virtuous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting
for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were
already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived.”
―
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
“We are all brothers, and yet I live by receiving a salary for arraigning, judging and
punishing a thief or a prostitute, whose existence is conditioned by the whole consumption of
my life.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The old oak, utterly transformed, draped in a tent of sappy dark green, basked faintly,
undulating in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled excrecenses, the
aged grief and mistrust- nothing was to be seen. Through the rough, century-old bark, where
there were no twigs, leaves had burst out so sappy, so young, that is was hard to believe that
the aged creature had borne them. "Yes, that is the same tree," thought Prince Andrey, and all
at once there came upon him an irrational, spring feeling of joy and renewal. All the best
moments of his life rose to his memory at once. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, and the dead,
reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre on the ferry, and the girl, thrilled by the beauty of the
night, and that night and that moon- it all rushed at once into his mind.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do i live? In the infinity of space, and infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate
with infinite complexity. When you understand the laws of these mutations, you'll understand
why you live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
