“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better
than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do i live? In the infinity of space, and infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate
with infinite complexity. When you understand the laws of these mutations, you'll understand
why you live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And indeed, if Evgeny Irtenev was mentally ill, then all people are just as mentally ill, and
the most mentally ill are undoubtably those who see signs of madness in others that they do
not see in themselves.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are two aspects," Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed: "those who take part and those
who look on; and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of
development in the spectator, I admit, but . . .”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“if they hadn’t both been pretending, but had had what is called a heart-to-heart talk, that is,
simply told each other just what they were thinking and feeling, then they would just have
looked into each other’s eyes, and Constantine would only have said: ‘You’re dying, dying,
dying!’ – while Nicholas would simply have replied: ‘I know I’m dying, but I’m afraid, afraid,
afraid!’ That’s all they would have said if they’d been talking straight from the heart. But it was
impossible to live that way, so Levin tried to do what he’d been trying to do all his life without
being able to, what a great many people could do so well, as he observed, and without which
life was impossible: he tried to say something different from what he thought, and he always
felt it came out false, that his brother caught him out and was irritated by it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she
would not be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and
she began.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one
thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to
which to reply.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'd rather end up wishing I hadn’t than end up wishing I had.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You need feeling, emotion, to create. You can't create out of indifference.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
