“I don't think badly of people. I like everybody, and I'm sorry for everybody.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink, and sleep, and I could not help doing
these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfillment of which I could
consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire
or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not
have know what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish,
was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there
was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guessed of what it
consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked,
walked, till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was nothing ahead of me but
destruction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes
or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death--complete
annihilation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre's insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons,
which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and,
loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was
worth loving them”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of
wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the willso fo the masses transferred to
one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power
is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite
qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like
that . . . Men are like rivers; the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is
narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull,
now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human
quality and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes
unlike himself—while still remaining the same man.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the unrest
which spring brings with it, full of dreams and vague hopes and desires.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop it. And plan it, so as to be
able to leave it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness,
he occasionally spent nights at his desk.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his
newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and
senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how
constrained.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
