“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to
understand or pity him”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Speech is silver but silence is golden.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread".
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been looking forward to.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“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
“Pierre’s heart thrilled to these words as he gazed with shining eyes into the mason’s face.
He listened without interrupting or asking any questions, and with all his soul he believed what
this stranger was saying to him. Whether he was believing rational arguments coming from the
mason, or trusting more like a child in the persuasive intonation, the sense of authority, the
sincerity of the words spoken, the quavering voice that sometimes seemed on the verge of
breaking down, or the gleaming aged eyes grown old in that conviction, or the tranquillity, the
certainty and true sense of vocation radiating from the old man’s whole being and striking
Pierre very forcibly, given the state of his own debasement and despair – whatever was
happening to him, he longed to believe with all his soul, and he did believe and he felt a joyful
sense of calm, renewal and return to life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When politics and home life have become one and the same thing, [...] then,[...] it is
evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'd rather end up wishing I hadn’t than end up wishing I had.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did worse than break the law, she broke the rules”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have learned what must be, and therefore have come to see the whole horror of what is.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of
goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious
part in it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
