“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the
world!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot
carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine
law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot
even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize
the duty of what is called allegiance.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Was it through reason that I arrived at the necessity of loving my neighbor and not
throttling him?...Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law which
demands that everyone who hinders the satisfaction of my desires should be throttled. That is
the conclusion of reason. Reason could not discover love for the other, because it’s
unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre's insanity consisted in the face that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons,
which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and
loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was
worth loving them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there
unnoticed."
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We do not love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we do
them”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same
necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty
or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess
of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the
production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union
among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and
progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
