“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to
understand or pity him”
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
―
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
“Now one often saw only her face and body, while her soul was not seen at all.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of
it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which
I have the power to put into it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormentor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior
sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should
live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and
a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their
living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned
and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set
belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves
unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men's esteem?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our
dreams.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of
pleasure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She did worse than break the law, she broke the rules”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of
truth.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy