“The animalism of the brute nature in man is disgusting,” he thought, “but as long as it remains in its naked form we observe it from the height of our spiritual life and despise it; and—whether one has fallen or resisted—one remains what one was before. But when that same animalism hides under a cloak of poetry and æsthetic feeling and demands our worship—then we are swallowed up by it completely and worship animalism, no longer distinguishing good from evil. Then it is awful!”

Leo Tolstoy

“Teach French and unteach sincerity.”

Leo Tolstoy

“I suffered most from the feeling that custom was daily petrifying our lives into one fixed shape, that our minds were losing their freedom and becoming enslaved to the steady passionless course of time.”

Leo Tolstoy

“Therein is the whole business of one’s life; to seek out and save in the soul that which is perishing.”

Leo Tolstoy

“There lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of fear, like the line separating the living from the dead.”

Leo Tolstoy

“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”

Leo Tolstoy

“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?”

Leo Tolstoy

“I think that in order to know love one must make a mistake and then correct it.”

Leo Tolstoy

“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”

Leo Tolstoy

“wisdom needs no violence...As it is we have played at war – that’s what’s vile! We play at magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can’t look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce...If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only when it was worth while going to certain death, as it is now. Then there would not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich.”

Leo Tolstoy

“I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now," he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice.”

Leo Tolstoy

“I can never forget what is my whole life.”

Leo Tolstoy

“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read. And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his heart.”

Leo Tolstoy

“A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost.

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


Contact Us


Send us a mail and we will get in touch with you soon!

You can email us at: contact@fancyread.com
Fancyread Inc.