“I don't give a damn unless I'm fond of a person;but I'd sacrifice my life for those I am fond
of; the rest I'd throttle if they stood in my way...And you may not believe me but if I still set a
value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will
regenarate me, purify me and elevate me. But you don't understand that.
―
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
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let them judge me as they like, I could deceive them, but myself I cannot deceive...and
strange to say, in this acknowledgement of his baseness there was something painful yet
joyful and quieting. More than once in Nekhlyudov's life there had been what he called, 'a
cleansing of the soul.' A state of mind in which, after a long period of sluggish inner life...he
began to clear out all the rubbish that had accumulated in his soul and caused the cessation of
true life. After such an awakening, Nekhlyudov always made some rules for himself...wrote in
his diary, began afresh... ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually
encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves
very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and
morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such
love there can be no sort of tragedy.”
―
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
“He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...]
Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“According to the biblical tradition the absence of work -- idleness -- was a condition of the
first man's state of blessedness before the Fall. The love of idleness has been preserved in
fallen man, but now a heavy curse lies upon him, not only because we have to earn our bread
by the sweat of our brow, but also because our sense of morality will not allow us to be both
idle and at ease. Whenever we are idle a secret voice keeps telling us to feel guilty. If man
could discover a state in which he could be idle and still feel useful and on the path of duty, he
would have regained one aspect of that primitive state of blessedness. And there is one such
state of enforced and irreproachable idleness enjoyed by an entire class of men -- the military
class. It is this state of enforced and irreproachable idleness that forms the chief attraction of
military service, and it always will.
―
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
“In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the
lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband
ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a
woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's
children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the
class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real
people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous,
plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything
else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So it would be, were it not for the law of inertia, as immutable a force in men and nations
as in inanimate bodies. In men it takes the form of the psychological principle, so truly
expressed in the words of the Gospel, " They have loved darkness better than light, because
their deeds were evil." This principle shows itself in men not trying to recognise the truth, but to
persuade themselves that the life they are leading, which is what they like and are used to, is
a life perfectly consistent with truth.”
―
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
“Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not
so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In captivity, in the shed, Pierre had learned, not with his mind, but with his whole being, his
life, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfying of natural
human needs, and that all unhappiness comes not from lack, but from superfluity; but now, in
these last three weeks of the march, he had learned a new and more comforting truth - he had
learned that there is nothing frightening in the world. He had learned that, as there is no
situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation
in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree. He had learned that there is a limit to
suffering and a limit to freedom, and that those limits are very close; that the man who suffers
because one leaf is askew in his bed of roses, suffers as much as he now suffered falling
asleep on the bare, damp ground, one side getting cold as the other warmed up; that when he
used to put on his tight ballroom shoes, he suffered just as much as now, when he walked
quite barefoot (his shoes had long since worn out) and his feet were covered with sores.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
