“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was
difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love them that hate you, but you can't love those you hate.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Chance created the situation; genius made use of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I turned my attention to every thing that was done by people who claimed to be Christians,
I was horrified.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And what was worst of all was that *It* drew his attention to itself not in order to make him
take some action but only that he should look at *It*, look it straight in the face: look at it and
without doing anything, suffer inexpressibly.
And to save himself from this condition Ivan Ilych looked for consolations -- new screens --
and new screens were found and for a while seemed to save him, but then they immediately
fell to pieces or rather became transparent, as if *It* penetrated them and nothing could veil
*It*.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“vegetarianism is the taproot of humanitarianism.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“intriguing people have to invent a noxious, dangerous party...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how
they should change. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon.
Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now,"
he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,’ he thought. And suddenly at this
thought of death a whole series of most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his
imagination: he remembered his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the
days when he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for
himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut in which he
was billeted with Nesvitsky and began to walk up and down before it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Real science studies and makes accessible that knowledge which people at that period of
history think important, and real art transfers this truth from the domain of knowledge to the
domain of feelings.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
