“I asked: 'What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space?' And I replied to
quite another question: 'What is the meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?' With
the result that, after long efforts of thought, the answer I reached was: 'None'.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I turned my attention to every thing that was done by people who claimed to be Christians,
I was horrified.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread".
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were spent in curing
debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist, whereas now all efforts are
employed, not in extirpating debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of
the consequences.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the
thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare – a power of whichhe felt himself entirely destitute – was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of
kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called
heart – the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life
that present themselves, and desire that alone.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The shore was God, the stream was tradition, and the oars were the free will given to me
to make it to the shore where I would be joined with God. Thus the force of life was renewed
within me, and I began to live once again.”
―
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
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
