“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care.
Such is the quality of bees...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it
right.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the
best happiness was already in the past.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he
nevertheless recovered.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
She had done all she could - she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shyly,
blissfully. He put his arms around her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My brother's death: wise, good, serious, he fell ill while still a young man, suffered for more
than a year, and died painfully, not understanding why he had lived and still less why he had
to die. No theories could give me, or him, any reply to these questions during his slow and
painful dying.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not
infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are
contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously
and cannot even insult each one another.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically
irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on
his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an
Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is
unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A
Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know
anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change
of life or by a change of conscience.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to
town.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”
―
Leo Tolstoy