“I think that in order to know love one must make a mistake and then correct it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be
better than he had been formerly”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Come, what did I say, repeat it? he would ask. But I could never repeat anything, so
ludicrous it seemed that he should talk to me, not of himself or me, but of something else, as
though it mattered what happened outside us. Only much later I began to have some slight
understanding of his cares and to be interested in them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man of the present day, whether he believes in the divinity of Christ or not, cannot fail to
see that to assist in the capacity of tzar, minister, governor, or commissioner in taking from a
poor family its last cow for taxes to be spent on cannons, or on the pay and pensions of idle
officials, who live in luxury and are worse than useless; or in putting into prison some man we
have ourselves corrupted, and throwing his family on the streets; or in plundering and
butchering in war; or in inculcating savage and idolatrous superstitious in the place of the lawof Christ; or in impounding the cow found on one's land, though it belongs to a man who has
no land; or to cheat the workman in a factory, by imposing fines for accidentally spoiled
articles; or making a poor man pay double the value for anything simply because he is in the
direst poverty;--not a man of the present day can fail to know that all these actions are base
and disgraceful, and that they need not do them. They all know it. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the
historic, universal aims of humanity.
―
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
“To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same
as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I was wrong when I said that I did not regret the past. I do regret it; I weep for the past love
which can never return. Who is to blame, I do not know. Love remains, but not the old love; its
place remains, but it is all wasted away and has lost all strength and substance; recollections
are still left, and gratitude; but...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Well Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I
warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and
horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist— and I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave', as you call
yourself! But how are you? I see I have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The further one goes, the better the land seems. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“she smiled at him, and at her own fears.”
―
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
“Her motherly instinct told her that there was too much of something in Natasha, and that it
would prevent her from being happy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
