“He stepped down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, yet he saw
her as one sees the sun, without looking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand
that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You
can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without
fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state
of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt
to become worse than useless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Kitty got up to fetch a table, and, as she passed, her eyes met Levin's. She felt for him with
her whole heart, the more because she was pitying him for a suffering of which she was
herself the cause. "If you can forgive me, forgive me," said her eyes, "I am so happy.""I hate them all, and you, and myself," his eyes responded, and he took up his hat. But he was
not destined to escape. Just as they were arranging themselves round the table, and Levin
was on the point of retiring, the old Prince came in, and, after greeting the ladies, addressed
Levin.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually
encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves
very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and
morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you
deal with incompatibility.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Luxury cannot be obtained other than by enslaving other people.”
―
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
“One might murder and steal and yet be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it
because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or
because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause.... Every
action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not
free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity.”
―
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
