“It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.”
―
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
“the same question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in truth ist the most cruel thing one man
can say to another”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life's impossible; and that I can't know, and
so I can't live," Levin said to himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
She had done all she could - she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shyly,
blissfully. He put his arms around her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre’s heart thrilled to these words as he gazed with shining eyes into the mason’s face.
He listened without interrupting or asking any questions, and with all his soul he believed what
this stranger was saying to him. Whether he was believing rational arguments coming from the
mason, or trusting more like a child in the persuasive intonation, the sense of authority, the
sincerity of the words spoken, the quavering voice that sometimes seemed on the verge of
breaking down, or the gleaming aged eyes grown old in that conviction, or the tranquillity, the
certainty and true sense of vocation radiating from the old man’s whole being and striking
Pierre very forcibly, given the state of his own debasement and despair – whatever was
happening to him, he longed to believe with all his soul, and he did believe and he felt a joyful
sense of calm, renewal and return to life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that
there is such a thing as death.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him
took away the beauty of what he saw.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy