“It seems that only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him
alone expect mercy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Olenin always took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten tracks.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What you spoke of just now was a mistake, not love”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the stories and descriptions of that time without exception peak only of the patriotism,
self-sacrifice, despair, grief, and heroism of the Russians. But in reality it was not like
that...The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were
influenced only by their immediate personal interests.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't think badly of people. I like everybody, and I'm sorry for everybody.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of
bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining
that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man must not check reason by tradition, but contrariwise, must check tradition by reason.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The vocation of every man and woman is to serve people. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Was it through reason that I arrived at the necessity of loving my neighbor and not
throttling him?...Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law which
demands that everyone who hinders the satisfaction of my desires should be throttled. That is
the conclusion of reason. Reason could not discover love for the other, because it’s
unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He wanted and needed their love, but felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor
humility nor purity”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But live while you live, tomorrow you die...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and
truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Nothing has been discovered, nothing has been invented. We can only know that we know
nothing. And that's the highest degree of human wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I saw that all who do not profess an identical faith with themselves are considered by the
Orthodox to be heretics, just as the Catholics and others consider the Orthodox to be heretics.
And i saw that the Orthodox (though they try to hide this) regard with hostility all who do not
express their faith by the same external symbols and words as themselves; and this is
naturally so; first, because the assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in truth, is the most
cruel thing one man can say to another; and secondly, because a man loving his children and
brothers cannot help being hostile to those who wish to pervert his children and brothers to a
false belief. And that hostility is increased in proportion to one's greater knowledge of theology.
And to me who considered that truth lay in union by love, it became self-evident that theology
was itself destroying what it ought to produce.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
