“Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go
on until you remember what was there before you were in the world. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one
advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics
had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were
held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed
them—or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of
themselves within him.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And therefore the Christian, who is subject only to the inner divine law, not only cannot
carry out the enactments of the external law, when they are not in agreement with the divine
law of love which he acknowledges (as is usually the case with state obligations), he cannot
even recognize the duty of obedience to anyone or anything whatever, he cannot recognize
the duty of what is called allegiance.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand because I
love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love,
shall return to the general and eternal source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But
they were only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they were too
one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former agitation and obscurity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think...if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with
his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as
he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and
makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the more he did nothing, the less time he had to do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No, it's all the same to me," said Levin, unable to suppress a smile.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
