“Olenin always took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten tracks.”
―
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
“Each time of life has its own kind of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait . . . there is nothing stronger than
these two: patience and time, they will do it all.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“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
“ٰ "The Most difficult thing but an essential one – is to love Life, to love it even while one
suffers, because Life is all, Life is God, and to love Life means to love God.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle
of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told
ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east
to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east
to the west slaying their fellows.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must do one of two tings: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and
then stick up for one's rights in it;or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as i
do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They had to return to the one sure and never-failing resource- slander.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp
from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read.
And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his
heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
