“You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that
this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Chance created the situation; genius made use of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also
held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible,
but it more closely suited his manner of life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“kitty always assumed the most beautiful things about people”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced hat he has lost because of a
mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of his game, but forgets that there were
also mistakes at ever step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect. The
mistake he pays attention to is conspicuous only because his opponent took advantage of it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“At the advent of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the
human heart: one very reasonably invites a man to consider the nature of the peril and the
means of escaping it; the other, with a still greater show of reason, argues that it is too
depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee
everything and avert the general march of events, and it is better therefore to shut one's eyes
to the disagreeable until it actually comes, and to think instead of what is pleasant. When a
man is alone he generally listens to the first voice; in the company of his fellow-men, to the
second.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“As long as there are slaughter houses there will always be battlefields.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If you feel that you are not free, look for the reason inside you.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Luxury cannot be obtained other than by enslaving other people.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
