“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“These principles laid down as in variable rules: that one must pay a card sharper, but
need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that
one must never cheat any one, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult,
but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good,
but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his
heart was at peace and he could hold his head up.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that
everyone around him lives in the same way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“There are no conditions to which a man may not become accustomed, particularly if he
sees that they are accepted by those about him.”
―
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 fulfilment 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 known 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 guess of what
it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
I'm not living, I'm waiting for a solution that goes on and on being put off.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Well Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes. But I
warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you still try to defend the infamies and
horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist— and I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing
more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave', as you call
yourself! But how are you? I see I have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup which is already full. The
most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any
idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before
him.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“... for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior
sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should
live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and
a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their
living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned
and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set
belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves
unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel
truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did
not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but from his being
shamefully and repulsively unhappy. He knew that for this, for the very fact that his heart was
torn with grief, they would be merciless to him. He felt that men would crush him as dogs
strangle a torn dog yelping with pain. He knew that his sole means of security against people
was to hide his wounds from them”
―
Leo Tolstoy
