“Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain
what they are, and also because wisdom needs no violence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is
not gold.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Pierre was for the first time at this meeting impressed by the endless multiplicity of men's
minds, which leads to no truth being ever seen by two persons alike...What Pierre chiefly
desired was always to transmit his thought to another exactly as he conceived it himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced hat he has lost because of a
mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of his game, but forgets that there were
also mistakes at ever step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect. The
mistake he pays attention to is conspicuous only because his opponent took advantage of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only real science is the knowledge of how a person should live his life. And this
knowledge is open to everyone.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I turned my attention to every thing that was done by people who claimed to be Christians,
I was horrified.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We exchanged disagreeable remarks. The impression of this first quarrel was terrible. I say
quarrel, but the term is inexact. It was the sudden discovery of the abyss that had been dug
between us.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of
pleasure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every reform by violence is to be deprecated, because it does little to correct the evil while
men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“was serene. Her Moscow troubles had become a memory to her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive. A
living man knows himself not otherwise than as wanting, that is, he is conscious of his will.
And his will, which constitutes the essence of his life, man is conscious of and cannot be
conscious of otherwise than as free.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always
talk about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are many faiths, but the spirit is one — in me, and in you, and in him. So that if
everyone believes himself, all will be united; everyone be himself and all will be as one.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and
laid to rest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
