“At the advent of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the
human heart: one very reasonably invites a man to consider the nature of the peril and the
means of escaping it; the other, with a still greater show of reason, argues that it is too
depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee
everything and avert the general march of events, and it is better therefore to shut one's eyes
to the disagreeable until it actually comes, and to think instead of what is pleasant. When a
man is alone he generally listens to the first voice; in the company of his fellow-men, to the
second.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity...for the
whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was
always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary, and the
activity itself, which at first seemed so great, ever lessened and lessened till it vanished. But
now...when he began to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he no
longer felt any joy at the thought of his activity, he felt confident that his work was necessary,
saw that it progressed far better than formerly, and that it was always growing more and
more.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear
the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with
her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are two aspects," Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed: "those who take part and those
who look on; and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of
development in the spectator, I admit, but . . .”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the
moment when the midpoint between the wheels drew level with her, she threw away the red
bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and with a
light movement, as though she would rise immediately, dropped on her knees. And at the
instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. 'Where am I? What am I doing? What
for?' She tried to get up, to throw herself back; but something huge and merciless struck her
on the head and dragged her down on her back
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How strange, extraordinary, and joyful it was to her to think that her son - the little son,
whose tiny limbs had faintly stirred within her twenty years ago, for whose sake she had so
often quarreled with the count, who would spoil him, the little son, who had first learnt to say
grusha, and then had learnt to say baba - that that son was now in a foreign land, in strange
surroundings, a manly warrior, alone without help or guidance, doing there his proper manly
work. All the world-wide experience of ages, proving that children do imperceptibly from the
cradle grow up into men, did not exist for the countess. The growth of her son had been for
her at every strage of his growth just as extraordinary as though millions of millions of men
had not grown up in the same way. Just as, twenty years before, she could not believe that the
little creature that was lying somewhere under her heart, would one day cry and learn to talk,
now she could not believe that the same little creature could be that strong, brave man, that
paragon of sons and of men that, judging by this letter, he was now.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Remember that there is only one important time and it is Now. The present moment is the
only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with
whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other
person in the future? The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at
you side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of
happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in
imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One of the commonest and most generally accepted delusions is that every man can be
qualified in some particular way -- said to be kind, wicked, stupid, energetic, apathetic, and so
on. People are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, more
often wise than stupid, more often energetic than apathetic or vice versa; but it could never be
true to say of one man that he is kind or wise, and of another that he is wicked or stupid. Yet
we are always classifying mankind in this way. And it is wrong. Human beings are like rivers;
the water is one and the same in all of them but every river is narrow in some places, flows
swifter in others; here it is broad, there still, or clear, or cold, or muddy or warm. It is the same
with men. Every man bears within him the germs of every human quality, and now manifests
one, now another, and frequently is quite unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with
his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but
studiously ignoring them. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase.
Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's different for you and me. You study, you become enlightened; I study, I become
confused.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the morning he would sit down to work, finish his allotted task, then take the little lamp
from the hook, put it on the table, get his book from the shelf, open it, and sit down to read.
And the more he read, the more he understood, and the brighter and happier it grew in his
heart.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and
perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
