“The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he
thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not
forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond
remedy, misfortune his own fault.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand,
and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of
goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious
part in it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Now one often saw only her face and body, while her soul was not seen at all.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“[...most men do not try] to recognize 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
“It was all so strange, so unlike what he had been looking forward to.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait . . . there is nothing stronger than
these two: patience and time, they will do it all.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Therein is the whole business of one’s life; to seek out and save in the soul that which is
perishing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Luxury cannot be obtained other than by enslaving other people.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
