“The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible . . . and to
serve others as much as possible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem
presented itself - Death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you
deal with incompatibility.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such
love there can be no sort of tragedy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowing what he was and for what
purpose he had been placed in the word.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never
could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Eveyrbody thinks of changing Humanity..and nobody thinks of changing Himself...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the
lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband
ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a
woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's
children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the
class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real
people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous,
plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything
else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the
human will.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow- witted man if he has not
formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most
intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt,
what is laid before him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
