“The next Post brought a reply from the starets, who wrote to him that the cause of all his
trouble lay in his pride. His Wrathful Outburst, the starets explained, had come about because
it was not for God that he had humbled himself, rejecting honours and advancement in the
church - not for God, but to satisfy his own pride, to be able to tell himself how virtuous he
was, seeking nothing for self. That was why he had not been able to endure the Superior's
conduct. Because he felt that he had given up everything for God, and now he was being put
on display, like some strange beast.
"If it were for God you had given up advancement, you would have let it pass.
worldly pride is still alive in you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing
on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the
voices of those who were disputing honestly.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So it would be, were it not for the law of inertia, as immutable a force in men and nations
as in inanimate bodies. In men it takes the form of the psychological principle, so truly
expressed in the words of the Gospel, " They have loved darkness better than light, because
their deeds were evil." This principle shows itself in men not trying to recognise the truth, but to
persuade themselves that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are used to, is
a life perfectly consistent with truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the unrest
which spring brings with it, full of dreams and vague hopes and desires.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed
extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed,
he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that
moment fit into the rest of his life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot
reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are such repulsive faces in the world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All families are happy, all families are alike.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior
sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should
live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and
a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their
living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned
and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set
belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves
unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The doctrine of Christ, which teaches love, humility, and self-denial, had always attracted
me. But I found a contrary law, both in the history of the past and in the present organization of
our lives – a law repugnant to my heart, my conscience, and my reason, but one that flattered
my animal instincts. I knew that if I accepted the doctrine of Christ, I should be forsaken,
miserable, persecuted, and sorrowing, as Christ tells us His followers will be. I knew that if I
accepted that law of man, I should have the approbation of my fellow-men; I should be at
peace and in safety; all possible sophisms would be at hand to quiet my conscience and I
should ‘laugh and be merry,’ as Christ says. I felt this, and therefore I avoided a closer
examination of the law of Christ, and tried to comprehend it in a way that should not prevent
my still leading my animal life. But, finding that impossible, I desisted from all attempts at
comprehension.”
―
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
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In historical events great men-so called-are but the labels that serve to give a mane to an
event, and like labels, they have the last possible connection with the event itself. Every action
of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at
all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one
loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be....”
―
Leo Tolstoy
