“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nikolushka and his upbringing, Andre, and religion were Princess Marya's comforts and
joys; but, besides that, since every human being needs his personal hope, Princess Marya
had in the deepest recesses of her soul a hidden dream and hope, which provided the main
comfort of her life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
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
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats, especially after struggling in
the snow drift, a cold shiver ran down his back on realizing that he must really spend the night
where they were.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east
to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east
to the west slaying their fellows.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“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
“A man can spend several hours sitting cross-legged in the same position if he knows that
noting prevents him from changing it; but if he knows that he has to sit with his legs crossed
like that, he will get cramps, his legs will twitch and strain towards where he would like to
stretch them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that
came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face
assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To live in the needs of the day, find forgetfulness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
