“Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the
Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up
and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast
away.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped
something of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our
dreams.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have learned what must be, and therefore have come to see the whole horror of what is.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be
calm, happy, and noble.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You're not racing?" joked the officer.
"Mine is a harder race," Alexei Alexandrovich replied respectfully.
And though the reply did not mean anything, the officer pretended that he had heard a clever
phrase from a clever man and had perfectly understood.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the
world!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it
right.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive. A
living man knows himself not otherwise than as wanting, that is, he is conscious of his will.
And his will, which constitutes the essence of his life, man is conscious of and cannot be
conscious of otherwise than as free.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It never before happened that the rich ruling and more educated minority, which has the
most influence on the masses, not only disbelieved the existing religion but was convinced
that no religion is no longer needed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have
the right to do that, haven't I?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
