“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or
endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.”
―
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
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Natasha, with a vigorous turn from her heel on to her toe, walked over to the middle of the
room and stood still... Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, a
serious expression came into her face. She was thinking of no one and of nothing at that
moment, and from her smiling mouth poured forth notes, those notes that anyone can produce
at the same intervals, and hold for the same length of time, yet a thousand times leave us
cold, and the thousand and first time they set us thrilling and weeping.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The latter part of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest period in Princess Marya's
life. Her love for Rostov was not then a source of torment or agitation to her. That love had by
then filled her whole soul and become an inseparable part of herself, and she no longer
struggled against it. Of late Princess Marya was convinced- though she never clearly in so
many words admitted it to herself- that she loved and was beloved.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Several times I asked myself, "Can it be that I have overlooked something, that there is
something which I have failed to understand? Is it not possible that this state of despair is
common to everyone?" And I searched for an answer to my questions in every area of
knowledge acquired by man. For a long time I carried on my painstaking search; I did not
search casually, out of mere curiosity, but painfully, persistently, day and night, like a dying
man seeking salvation. I found nothing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to
the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it
seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living
resolutely and without hesitation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the
achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Formerly, when I was told to consider him wise, I kept trying to, and thought I was stupid
myself because I was unable to perceive his wisdom; but as soon as I said to myself, he's
stupid (only in a whisper of course), it all became quite clear! Don't you think so?'
'How malicious you are to-day!'
'Not at all. I have no choice. One of us is stupid, and you know it's impossible to say so of
oneself.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without
fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state
of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt
to become worse than useless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is not a polite recreation, but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to realize this and
not make a game of it... as it stands now it's the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
