“Chance created the situation; genius made use of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have learned what must be, and therefore have come to see the whole horror of what is.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say,
events the reasonableness of which we do not understand).”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their intimacy did not rest merely on
champagne. Levin had been the friend and companion of his early youth. They were fond of
one another in spite of the difference of their characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one
another who have been together in early youth. But in spite of this, each of them—as is often
the way with men who have selected careers of different kinds—though in discussion he
would even justify the other's career, in his heart despised it. It seemed to each of them that
the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere
phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often
he had seen him come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but
what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he took no
interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease
and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected
view of things. Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed at this, and liked it. In the same way Levin in his
heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at,
and regarded as trifling. But the difference was that Oblonsky, as he was doing the same as
every one did, laughed complacently and good-humoredly, while Levin laughed without
complacency and sometimes angrily.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you could forget and forgive what happened. He snatched the chalk with nervous, trembling fingers, and breaking it, wrote the initial letters
of the following phrase, "I have nothing to forget and to forgive; I have never ceased to love
you.”"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the
moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red
bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a
light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the
instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What
for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her
on the head and dragged her down on her back
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or
desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The further one goes, the better the land seems. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But all these hints at foreseeing what actually did happen on the French as well as on the
Russian side are only conspicuous now because the event has justified them. If the event had
not come to pass, these hints would have been forgotten, as thousands and millions of
suggestions and supposition are now forgotten that were current at the period, but have been
shown by time to be unfounded and so have been consigned to oblivion.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you're a good man, to forget what you've said, as I
forget it," she said at last.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is better to know several basic rules of life than to study many unnecessary sciences.
The major rules of life will stop you from evil and show you the good path in life; but the
knowledge of many unnecessary sciences may lead you into the temptation of pride, and stop
you from understanding the basic rules of life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand
that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You
can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
―
Leo Tolstoy