“Self-conceit is a sentiment entirely incompatible with genuine sorrow, and it is so firmly
engrafted on human nature that even the most profound sorrow can seldom expel it
altogether. Vanity in sorrow expresses itself by a desire to appear either stricken with grief or
unhappy or brave: and this ignoble desire which we do not acknowledge but which hardly ever
leaves us even in the deepest trouble robs our grief of its strength, dignity and sincerity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all
else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the
human will.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one
loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be....”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love them that hate you, but you can't love those you hate.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how
constrained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order not to give myself up to the desire to kill him on the spot, I felt compelled to treat
him cordially.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most mentally deranged people are those who see in others indications of insanity
they do not notice in themselves.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A thought can advance your life in the right direction only when it answers questions which
were asked by your soul. A thought which was first borrowed from someone else and then
accepted by your mind and memory does not really much influence your life, and sometimes
leads you in the wrong direction. Read less, study less, but think more.
Learn, both from your teachers and from the books which you read, only those things which
you really need and which you really want to know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible; and that I can't know, and
so I can't live," Levin said to himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The march of humanity, springing as it does from an infinite multitude of individual wills, is
continuous.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
