“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Between Countess Nordston and Levin there had been established those relations, not
infrequent in society, in which two persons, while ostensibly remaining on friendly terms, are
contemptuous of each other to such a degree that they cannot even treat each other seriously
and cannot even insult each one another.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you feel that you are not free, look for the reason inside you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“nothing has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the
heathen, and has hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the
disregard of [non-resistance] by men calling themselves Christians, and the permission of war
and violence to Christians.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know, I know because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem
presented itself - Death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But one thing I beg of you, look on me as your friend; and if you want some help, advice, or
simply want to open your heart to someone- not now, but when things are clearer in your
heart- think of me.' He took her hand and kissed it. 'I shall be happy, if I am able...' Pierre was
confused.
'Don't speak to me like that; I'm not worth it!' cried Natasha...
'Hush, hush your whole life lies before you,' he said to her.
'Before me! No! All is over for me,' she said, with shame and humiliation.
'All over?' he repeated. 'If I were not myself, but the handsomest, cleverest, best man in the
world, and if I were free I would be on my knees this minute to beg for your hand and your
love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything shifts and moves, and this movement is God.
And while there is life, there is delight in the self-awareness of the divinity. To love life is to
love God. The hardest and most blissful thing is to love this life in one's suffering, in the
guiltlessness of suffering.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
