“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of
pleasure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But I'm glad you'll see me as I am. Above all, I wouldn't want people to think that I want to
prove anything. I don't want to prove anything, I just want to live; to cause no evil to anyone
but myself. I have that right, haven't I?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The march of humanity, springing as it does from an infinite multitude of individual wills, is
continuous.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Chance created the situation; genius made use of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you feel that you are not free, look for the reason inside you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And there in the middle, high above Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars
on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and
the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular
harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny
tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre’s eyes glittered with tears of rapture as
he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at
speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and
impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail
and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body
seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre’s newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and
blossomed into new life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that in order to know love one must make a mistake and then correct it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were spent in curing
debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist, whereas now all efforts are
employed, not in extirpating debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of
the consequences.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor
humility nor purity”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Oh no, Papa, Kitty objected warmly. Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much
good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stah. Perhaps, he said, pressing
her arm with his elbow. But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows
anything about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
I'm not living, I'm waiting for a solution that goes on and on being put off.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped
something of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
