“I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And
like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of
irreproachable morality.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She was as easy to recognize in that crowd as a rose among nettles.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to forgive, one must have lived through what I have lived through, and may God
spare her that.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything
is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone.”
―
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
Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is bad? What is good? What should one love, what hate? Why live, and what am I?
What is lie,what is death? What power rules over everything?" he asked himself. And there
was no answer to any of these questions except one, which was not logical and was not at all
an answer to these questions. This answer was: "You will die--and everything will end. You will
die and learn everything--or stop asking.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anything is better than lies and deceit!
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or
desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said
of him; he was only glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they would
help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today
learned to understand it so differently.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If everyone fought only for his own convictions, there would be no wars.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
