“Slavery, you know, is nothing else than the unwilling labor of many. Therefore to get rid of
slavery it is necessary that people should not wish to profit by the forced labor of others and
should consider it a sin and a shame. But they go and abolish the external form of slavery and
arrange so that one can no longer buy and sell slaves, and they imagine and assure
themselves that slavery no longer exists, and do not see or wish to see that it does, because
people still want and consider it good and right to exploit the labor of others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Faith is neither hope nor trust, but a particular spiritual state. Faith is man’s awareness that
his position in the world obliges him to perform certain actions. A person acts according to his
faith, not as the catechism says because he believes in things unseen as in things seen, nor
because he wishes to achieve things hoped for, but simply because having defined his
position in the world it is natural for him to act according to it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If everyone fought only for his own convictions, there would be no wars.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness,
he occasionally spent nights at his desk.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that all his hitherto dissipated and dispersed forces were gathered and directed with
terrible energy towards one blissful goal.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Do not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and desires are
engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through the rough wilderness of life, which is
far from Me.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that
there is such a thing as death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sight-seeing, aside from the fact that everything had been seen already, could not have for
him--and intelligent Russian--the inexplicable importance attached to it by the English.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't
got.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“the superfluity of the comforts of like destroys all joy in satisfying one's needs, while great
freedom in the choice of occupation...is just what makes the choice of occupation insoluble
difficult and destroys the need and even the possibility of having an occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his
newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel
truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all
around him are living in the same way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
