“A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When politics and home life have become one and the same thing, [...] then,[...] it is
evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Prince Andrei was one of the best dancers of his day. Natasha danced exquisitely. Her
little feet in their satin dancing shoes performed their role swiftly, lightly, as if they had wings,
while her face was radiant and ecstatic with happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We should show life neither as it is or as it ought to be, but only as we see it in our
dreams.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“-Why are you so sad? Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”
―
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
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to
town.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Not a word, not a movement of yours will I ever forget, nor can I...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We expect rewards for goodness, and punishments for the bad things which we do. Often,
they are not immediately”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“As a man cannot lift a mountain, and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living
the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence. Of what value then to him are
arguments about the imaginary advantages of doing what is morally impossible for him to do?”
―
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
“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
In those days also people loved, envied, sought truth and virtue, and where carried away by
passions; and there was the same complex mental and moral life among the upper classes,
where were in some instances even more refined than now. If we have come to believe in the
perversity and coarse violence of that period, that is only because the traditions, memoirs,
stories, and novels that have been handed to us, record for the most part exceptional cases of
violence and brutality. To suppose that the predominant characteristic of that period was
turbulence, is as unjust as it would before a man, seeing nothing but the tops of trees beyond
a hill, to conclude that there was nothing to be found in that locality but trees.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet,
yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand”
―
Leo Tolstoy
