“It was clear that everything considered important and good was insignificant and repulsive,
and that all this glamour and luxury hid the old well-known crimes, which not only remained
unpunished but were adorned with all the splendor men can devise.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!”
―
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
“Oh no, Papa, Kitty objected warmly. Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much
good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stah. Perhaps, he said, pressing
her arm with his elbow. But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows
anything about it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the
world!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember
things that have never happened.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for
them that is in other people.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own
body.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the
ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which
there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime
something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no
conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Quos vilt perdere dementat' Whome the gods wish to destroy, they first drive made
(Latin).”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human
wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
