“At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his
reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of
that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands
he felt himself, his soul, and his love?
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional
types, and then—all the combinations made—they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin
to invent more natural, true figures.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he
was here to be where she was.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with
his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as
he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and
makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So you make a sacrifice!' he threw special emphasis on the last word. 'Well, so do I. What
could be better? We complete in generosity--what an example of family happiness!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need
an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene,
behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As
always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and
back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance
from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of
her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to
touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of
her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he
saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And
once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed
deception.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just imagine the existence of a man - let us call him A - who has left youth far behind, and
of a woman whom we may call B, who is young and happy and has seen nothing as yet of life
or of the world. Family circumstances of various kinds brought them together, and he grew to
love her as a daughter, and had no fear that his love would change its nature. But he forgot
that B was so young, that life was still a May-game to her and that it was easy to fall in love
with her in a different way, and that this would amuse her. He made a mistake and was
suddenly aware of another feeling, as heavy as remorse, making its way into his heart, and he
was afraid. He was afraid that their old friendly relations would be destroyed, and he made up
his mind to go away before that happened.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The old oak, utterly transformed, draped in a tent of sappy dark green, basked faintly,
undulating in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled excrecenses, the
aged grief and mistrust- nothing was to be seen. Through the rough, century-old bark, where
there were no twigs, leaves had burst out so sappy, so young, that is was hard to believe that
the aged creature had borne them. "Yes, that is the same tree," thought Prince Andrey, and all
at once there came upon him an irrational, spring feeling of joy and renewal. All the best
moments of his life rose to his memory at once. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, and the dead,
reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre on the ferry, and the girl, thrilled by the beauty of the
night, and that night and that moon- it all rushed at once into his mind.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The story of Ivan Ilyich life was of the simplest, most ordinary and therefore most terrible".
Tolstoy defines living an ordinary life as terrible - I really do have to agree!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The main reason for the terrible cruelty between men today, apart from the absence
religion, is still the refined complexity of life which shields people from the consequences of
their actions. However cruel Attila, Genghis Khan and their followers may have been, the act
of killing people personally, face to face, must have been unpleasant: the wailing relatives and
the presence of the corpses. And thus their cruelty was restrained. Nowadays we kill people
through such a complex process of communication, and the consequences of our cruelty are
so carefully removed and concealed from us, that there is no restraint on the bestiality of the
action.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the
moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red
bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a
light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the
instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What
for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her
on the head and dragged her down on her back
―
Leo Tolstoy
