“the same question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No matter when, at whatever moment, if she were asked what she was thinking about she
could reply quite correctly - one thing, her happiness and her unhappiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Now one often saw only her face and body, while her soul was not seen at all.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In order not to give myself up to the desire to kill him on the spot, I felt compelled to treat
him cordially.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No one is satisfied with his position, but every one is satisfied with his wit”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no significant idea which cannot be explained to an intelligent twelve year old boy
in fifteen minutes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality,
and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of
born freethinker has been appearing, who’ve never even heard that there have been laws of
morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative
ideas about everything, that is savages.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as
always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme
law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The doctrine of Christ, which teaches love, humility, and self-denial, had always attracted
me. But I found a contrary law, both in the history of the past and in the present organization of
our lives – a law repugnant to my heart, my conscience, and my reason, but one that flattered
my animal instincts. I knew that if I accepted the doctrine of Christ, I should be forsaken,
miserable, persecuted, and sorrowing, as Christ tells us His followers will be. I knew that if I
accepted that law of man, I should have the approbation of my fellow-men; I should be at
peace and in safety; all possible sophisms would be at hand to quiet my conscience and I
should ‘laugh and be merry,’ as Christ says. I felt this, and therefore I avoided a closer
examination of the law of Christ, and tried to comprehend it in a way that should not prevent
my still leading my animal life. But, finding that impossible, I desisted from all attempts at
comprehension.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
