“excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare
shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but can it be that because one
swallow does not make a summer another swallow, sensing and anticipating summer, must
not fly? If every blade of grass waited similarly summer would never occur. And it is the same
with establishing the Kingdom of God: we must not think about whether we are the first or the
thousandth swallow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Each time of life has its own kind of love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot
change.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife
relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such
questions.
Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in
terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one
principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yet time and again, from different approaches, I kept coming to the same conclusion, that I
could not have come into the world without any cause, reason, or meaning; that I could not be
the fledgeling fallen from the nest that I felt myself to be. If I lie on my back crying in the tall
grass, like a fledgeling, it is because I know that my mother brought me into the world, kept me
warm, fed me and loved me. But where is she, that mother? If I am abandoned, then who has
abandoned me? I cannot hide myself from the fact that someone who loved me gave birth to
me. Who is this someone? Again, God.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself
by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and
mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all
lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing
in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that
"someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable
meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided
understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or
tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me;
nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be,
will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail
to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is
intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere
fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty
about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or
she is, and not as you would like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Ivan Ilych had been a colleague of the gentlemen present and was liked by them all. He
had been ill for some weeks with an illness said to be incurable. His post had been kept open
for him, but there had been conjectures that in case of his death Alexeev might receive his
appointment, and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would succeed Alexeev. So on receiving the
news of Ivan Ilych's death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was
of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves or their acquaintances.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“This child, with his naive outlook on life was the compass which showed them the degree
of their departure from what they knew but did not want to know.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At that instant he knew that all his doubts, even the impossibility of believing with his
reason, of which he was aware in himself, did not in the least hinder his turning to God. All of
that now floated out of his soul like dust. To whom was he to turn if not to Him in whose hands
he felt himself, his soul, and his love?
―
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
“Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his army because he
wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as unjust as to say that he had brought
his troops to Moscow because he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can
understand."
―
Leo Tolstoy