“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is
eternal and ever precious – your heart, your soul. Beauty one could get to know and fall in
love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know.
Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful and natural
of feelings,But the more difficult the labour and hardship, the higher the reward,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But one thing I beg of you, look on me as your friend; and if you want some help, advice, or
simply want to open your heart to someone- not now, but when things are clearer in your
heart- think of me.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'I shall be happy, if I am able...' Pierre was
confused.
'Don't speak to me like that; I'm not worth it!' cried Natasha...
'Hush, hush your whole life lies before you,' he said to her.
'Before me! No! All is over for me,' she said, with shame and humiliation.
'All over?' he repeated. 'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the
world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your
love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political
opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of
his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Do not be interested in the quantity of people who respect and admire you, but in their
quality. If bad people dislike you, so much the better. —LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into
Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood
which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the greatest pleasure in his life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
―
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
“As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in
argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she
would not be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change
of life or by a change of conscience.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He saw either death or the approach of it everywhere. But his undertaking now occupied
him all the more. He had to live his life to the end, until death came. Darkness covered
everything for him; but precisely because of this darkness he felt that his undertaking was the
only guiding thread in this darkness, and he seized it and held on to it with all his remaining
strength.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When I came to you out of all that dust and heat and toil, I positively smelt violets at once.
But not the sweet violet - you know, that early dark violet that smells of melting snow and
spring grass.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
