“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like
the sun, even without looking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Luxury cannot be obtained other than by enslaving other people.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was
only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of
life. It was she. It was Kitty.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The business of art lies just in this, -- to make that understood and felt which, in the form of
an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Our profession is dreadful, writing corrupts the soul.”
―
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
“What's all this love of arguing? No one ever convinces anyone else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all
else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So they are even more frightened than we are,' he thought. 'Why, is this all that's meant by
heroism? And did I do it for the sake of my country? And was he to blame with his dimple and
his blue eyes? How frightened he was! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill
him? My hand trembled. And they have given me the St. George's Cross. I can't make it out, I
can't make it out!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Death, the inevitable end of everything, confronted him for the first time with irresistible
force.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the
achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the differential of history, that is,
the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding
the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
