“We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however
trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions
if one's entire attention is devoted to it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Death is finished, he said to himself. It is no more!”
―
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
“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“what time can be more beautiful than the one in which the finest virtues, innocent
cheerfulness and indefinable longing for love constitute the sole motives of your life?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What are you talking about?' cried Lukashka. 'We must go through the middle gates, of
course.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Olenin always took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten tracks.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread".
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on
earth”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anything is better than lies and deceit!
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The Jew is that sacred being, who has brought down from Heaven the everlasting fire, and
has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of
which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
