“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 crowdas a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light
all around her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of
it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to
happen”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no
happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one
loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be....”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anna Arkadyevna read and understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to
follow the reflection of other people’s lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. If she
read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless
steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech,
she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the
hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had surprised everyone by her boldness, she
too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the
smooth paper knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and
she began.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure whether what he
said was very witty or very stupid.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to
such stories, putting in words and asking questions, all aiming at bringing out clearly the moral
beauty of the action of which he was told. Attachments, friendships, love, as Pierre understood
them, Karataev had none, but he loved and lived on affectionate terms with every creature
with whom he was thrown in life, and especially so with man- not with any particular man, but
with the men that happened to be before his eyes.
But his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It only had meaning as part
of a whole, of which he was at all times conscious.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that
everyone around him lives in the same way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's different for you and me. You study, you become enlightened; I study, I become
confused.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup which is already full. The
most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any
idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before
him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
