“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there
unnoticed."
―
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
“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
“How strange it was to think that he, who such a short time ago dared not believe in the
happiness of her loving him, now felt unhappy because she loved him too much!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He saw either death or the approach of it everywhere. But his undertaking now occupied
him all the more. He had to live his life to the end, until death came. Darkness covered
everything for him; but precisely because of this darkness he felt that his undertaking was the
only guiding thread in this darkness, and he seized it and held on to it with all his remaining
strength.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day
and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor
for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And there in the middle, high above Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars
on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and
the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular
harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny
tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre’s eyes glittered with tears of rapture as
he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at
speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and
impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail
and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body
seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre’s newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and
blossomed into new life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are no conditions to which a man may not become accustomed, particularly if he
sees that they are accepted by those about him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Natasha, in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked, as women can walk, with
the more repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man of the present day, whether he believes in the divinity of Christ or not, cannot fail to
see that to assist in the capacity of tzar, minister, governor, or commissioner in taking from a
poor family its last cow for taxes to be spent on cannons, or on the pay and pensions of idle
officials, who live in luxury and are worse than useless; or in putting into prison some man we
have ourselves corrupted, and throwing his family on the streets; or in plundering and
butchering in war; or in inculcating savage and idolatrous superstitious in the place of the lawof Christ; or in impounding the cow found on one's land, though it belongs to a man who has
no land; or to cheat the workman in a factory, by imposing fines for accidentally spoiled
articles; or making a poor man pay double the value for anything simply because he is in the
direst poverty;--not a man of the present day can fail to know that all these actions are base
and disgraceful, and that they need not do them. They all know it. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How good is it to remember one's insignificance: that of a man among billions of men, of
an animal amid billions of animals; and one's abode, the earth, a little grain of sand in
comparison with Sirius and others, and one's life span in comparison with billions on billions of
ages. There is only one significance, you are a worker. The assignment is inscribed in your
reason and heart and expressed clearly and comprehensibly by the best among the beings
similar to you. The reward for doing the assignment is immediately within you. But what the
significance of the assignment is or of its completion, that you are not given to know, nor do
you need to know it. It is good enough as it is. What else could you desire?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“So they are even more frightened than we are,' he thought. 'Why, is this all that's meant by
heroism? And did I do it for the sake of my country? And was he to blame with his dimple and
his blue eyes? How frightened he was! He thought I was going to kill him. Why should I kill
him? My hand trembled. And they have given me the St. George's Cross. I can't make it out, I
can't make it out!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
