“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The law of God is not to return evil for evil; indeed, if you try in this way to stamp out
wickedness it will come upon you all the stronger. It is not difficult for you to kill the man, but
his blood will surely stain your own soul. You may think you have killed a bad man--that you
have gotten rid of evil--but you will soon find out that the seeds of still greater wickedness
have been planted within you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life. And this
knowledge is open to everyone.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own
body.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not
forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“-Why are you so sad? Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'd rather end up wishing I hadn’t than end up wishing I had.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken
and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't allow myself to doubt myself even for a moment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But neither of them dared speak of it, and not having expressed the one thing that
occupied their thoughts, whatever they said rang false.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When the examination was over, the doctor looked at his watch, and then Praskovya
Fyodorovna informed Ivan Ilyich that it must of course be as he liked, but she had sent today
for a celebrated doctor, and that he would examine him, and have a consultation with Mihail
Danilovich (that was the name of his regular doctor). 'Don't oppose it now, please. This I'm
doing entirely for my own sake,' she said ironically, meaning it to be understood that she was
doing it all for his sake, and was only saying this to give him no right to refuse her request. He
lay silent, knitting his brows. He felt that he was hemmed in by such a tangle of falsity that it
was hard to disentangle anything from it. Everything she did for him was entirely for her own
sake, and she told him she was doing for her own sake what she actually was doing for her
own sake as something so incredible that he would take it as meaning the opposite.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To know God and to live is one and the same thing. God is life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
