“The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity
gives to the problems of my life, what answers do I accept?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You need feeling, emotion, to create. You can't create out of indifference.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically
irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on
his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an
Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is
unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A
Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know
anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Death, the inevitable end of everything, confronted him for the first time with irresistible
force.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
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
“There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the
most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day—that is,
forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could
not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the
dream of daily life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Oh no, Papa, Kitty objected warmly. Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much
good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stah. Perhaps, he said, pressing
her arm with his elbow. But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows
anything about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and
laid to rest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without
attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she
was talking to.”
―
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
“Each time of life has its own kind of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What you spoke of just now was a mistake, not love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
