“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he
said was very clever or very stupid.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, could know his future life in full
detail, he would have nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of humanity. If it had a
programme of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign
that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in the same place
―
Leo Tolstoy
“By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there
unnoticed."
―
Leo Tolstoy
“For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life
is possible at all.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it."
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is
connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the
predestination and inevitability of his every action.”
―
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
“What's all this love of arguing? No one ever convinces anyone else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most important acts, both for the one who accomplishes them and for his fellow
creatures, are those that have remote consequences.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else
being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on
earth”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it,
everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know
himself.
―
Leo Tolstoy
