“I understood, not with my intellect but with my whole being, that no theories of the
rationality of existence or of progress could justify such an act; I realized that even if all the
people in the world from the day of creation found this to be necessary according to whatever
theory, I knew that it was not necessary and that it was wrong. Therefore, my judgments must
be based-on what is right and necessary and not on what people say and do; I must judge not
according to progress but according to my own heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know, I know because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to
be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live
and be happy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in
argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the
going is hard and slow - that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and
time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“God forgive me everything!’ she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing
what others have not seen.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the
inner workings of his very soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“she smiled at him, and at her own fears.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Thus the truth—that his life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis,
which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man—this truth, in order to force a
way to man’s consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which it
was expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also against
deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men
to accept religious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What energy!' I thought. 'Man has conquered everything, and destroyed millions of plants,
yet this one won't submit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to
serve others as much as possible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
