“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be
the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a
moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And the moujiks? How do the moujiks die?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to
happen”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do i live? In the infinity of space, and infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate
with infinite complexity. When you understand the laws of these mutations, you'll understand
why you live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The acquisition by dishonest means and cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was
incapable of clearly defining the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. 'Like the profits
made by banks,' he went on. 'This is evil, I mean, the acquisition of enormous fortunes without
work, as it used to be with the spirit monopolists. Only the form has changed. Le roi est mort,
vive le roi! Hardly were the monopolies abolished before railways and banks appeared: just
another way of making money without work.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his
reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of
that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands
he felt himself, his soul, and his love?
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the
historic, universal aims of humanity.
―
Leo Tolstoy
