“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no
happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he
participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and
brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world
becomes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought
of the writer or reformer. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to
understand or pity him”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything I know, I know because of love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Her maternal instinct told her Natasha had too much of something, and because of this she
would not be happy”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I do value my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing
but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for us to suppose we can
have something great - ideas, work - it's all dust and ashes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Formerly (it had begun almost from childhood and kept growing till full maturity), whenever
he had tried to do something that would be good for everyone, for mankind, for Russia, for the
district, for the whole village, he had noticed that thinking about it was pleasant, but the doing
itself was always awkward, there was no full assurance that the thing was absolutely
necessary, and the doing itself, which at the start had seemed so big, kept diminishing and
diminishing, dwindling to nothing; while now, after his marriage, when he began to limit himself
more and more to living for himself, though he no longer experienced any joy at the thought of
what he was doing, he felt certain that his work was necessary, saw that it turned out much
better than before and that it was expanding more and more.”
―
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
