What did that show? It showed that he had lived well, but thought badly.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same
as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with
his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as
he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and
makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to
town.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness
either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, there is something in me hateful, repulsive," thought Ljewin, as he came away from
the Schtscherbazkijs', and walked in the direction of his brother's lodgings. "And I don't get on
with other people. Pride, they say. No, I have no pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put
myself in such a position"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All is over...I have nothing but you, remember that.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of
happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in
imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
