“He remembered his mother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the
enemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and
insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words,
become oblivious.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon.
Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now,"
he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-
sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an
expression of one fact of human endeavor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He went down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, but he saw her, as
one sees the sun, without looking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I suffered most from the feeling that custom was daily petrifying our lives into one fixed
shape, that our minds were losing their freedom and becoming enslaved to the steady
passionless course of time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to
town.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The rivalry of the European states in constantly increasing their forces has reduced them
to the necessity of having recourse to universal military service, since by that means the
greatest possible number of soldiers is obtained at the least possible expense. Germany first
hit on this device. And directly one state adopted it the others were obliged to do the same.
And by this means all citizens are under arms to support the iniquities practiced upon them; allcitizens have become their own oppressors.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”
―
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
“Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the
pause of happiness”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was much changed and grown even thinner since Pyotr Ivanovich had last seen him,
but, as is always the case with the dead, his face was handsomer and above all more dignified
than than when he was alive.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear
the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with
her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could,
and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise
you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...
Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
