“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human
wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to
happen”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What are you talking about?' cried Lukashka. 'We must go through the middle gates, of
course.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties,
deceptions, grieg, and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in
darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out forever.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Levin had often noticed in arguments between even the most intelligent people that after
enormous efforts, an enormous number of logical subtleties and words, the arguers would
finally come to the awareness that what they had spent so long struggling to prove to each
other had been known to them long, long before, from the beginning of the argument, but that
they loved different things and therefore did not want to name what they loved, so as not to be
challenged. He had often felt that sometimes during an argument you would understand what
your opponent loves, and suddenly come to love the same thing yourself, and agree all at
once, and then all reasonings would fall away as superfluous; and sometimes it was the other
way round: you would finally say what you yourself love, for the sake of which you are
inventing your reasonings, and if you happened to say it well and sincerely, the opponent
would suddenly agree and stop arguing. That was the very thing he wanted to say.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not
infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are
contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously
and cannot even insult each one another.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You need feeling, emotion, to create. You can't create out of indifference.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It was clear that everything considered important and good was insignificant and repulsive,
and that all this glamour and luxury hid the old well-known crimes, which not only remained
unpunished but were adorned with all the splendor men can devise.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order not to give myself up to the desire to kill him on the spot, I felt compelled to treat
him cordially.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
