“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
“This was his acknowledgment of the impossibility of changing a man's convictions by
words, and his recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing things
each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of each individual which used to
excite and irritate Pierre now became a basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he
took in, other people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between men's
opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased him and drew from him
an amused and gentle smile.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on
earth”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was
standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing
striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd
as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light
on all round her. "Is it possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to her?" he thought. The
place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one
moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make
an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about
her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding
looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And then all at once love turns up, and you're done for, done for.”
―
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
“All were happy -- plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people -- adult men and
women -- never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this
spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world,
given to all creatures to enjoy -- a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to
love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There was no solution but that usual solution which life gives to all questions, even the
most complex and insoluble. That answer one must live in the needs of one that - that is,
forget oneself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is not a polite recreation, but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to realize this and
not make a game of it... as it stands now it's the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only
an atmosphere.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's like scarlet fever: one has to get it over."
"Then one should invent a way of inoculating love, like vaccination.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
