“But Levin was in love, and so it seemed to him that Kitty was so perfect in every respect
that she was a creature far above everything earthly; and that he was a creature so low and so
earthly that it could not even be conceived that other people and she herself could regard him
as worthy of her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At school he had done things which had formerly seemed to him very horrid and made him
feel disgusted with himself when he did them; but when later on he saw that such actions were
done by people of good position and that they did not regard them as wrong, he was able not
exactly to regard them as right, but to forget about them entirely or not be at all troubled at
remembering them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At moments of departure and a change of life, people capable of reflecting on their actions
usually get into a serious state of mind. At these moments they usually take stock of the past
and make plans for the future.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To speak of it would be giving importance to something that has none.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“As is always the case with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her
upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and peculiar form of
beauty.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement
to rulers chosen by the masses.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“For if we allow that human life is always guided by reason, we destroy the premise that life
is possible at all.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything seemed pleasant and easy to Nikolai during the first part of his stay in
Voronezh and, as generally happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind, everything
went well and easily.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Music makes me forget myself, my true condition, it carries me off into another state of
being, one that isn't my own: under the influence of music I have the illusion of feeling things I
don't really feel, of understanding things I don't understand, being able to do things I'm not
able to do (...) Can it really be allowable for anyone who feels like it to hypnotize another
person, or many other persons, and then do what he likes with them? Particularly if the
hypnotist is the first unscrupulous individual who happens to come along?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the
more their poverty will increase.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I do value my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing
but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can
have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the
pause of happiness”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn,
and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
