“For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes, and the distant and
impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it
unhindered and let it defend itself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every man and every living creature has a sacred right to the gladness of springtime.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed
extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed,
he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that
moment fit into the rest of his life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.”
―
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
“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing
what others have not seen.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness
either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot
carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine
law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot
even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize
the duty of what is called allegiance.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with
divine love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the aim of civilization is to translate everything into enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most mentally deranged people are those who see in others indications of insanity
they do not notice in themselves.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the midst of winter, I find within me the invisible summer...”
―
Leo Tolstoy