“I'd rather end up wishing I hadn’t than end up wishing I had.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of
something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved
him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed.
And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To
love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved
with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt
such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with
human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not
even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated
in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only
possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she
would not be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with
his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but
studiously ignoring them. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is
something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is
common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of
knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not
search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying
man seeking salvation. I found nothing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of
truth.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'll tell you truly: I value my thought and work terribly, but in essence - think about it - this
whole world of ours is just a bit of mildew that grew over a tiny planet. And we think we can
have something great - thoughts, deeds! They're all grains of sand”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how
they should change. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
