“He felt himself, and did not want to be anyone else. All he wanted now was to be better
than before.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What are you talking about?' cried Lukashka. 'We must go through the middle gates, of
course.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love
my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed
it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason!
Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who
hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of
loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“-Why are you so sad? Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about "these days," imagining that they
have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "these days" and that human nature
changes with the times.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it
right.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“God forgive me everything!’ she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Sitting in his old schoolroom on the sofa with little cushions on the arms and looking into
Natasha's wildly eager eyes, Rostov was carried back into that world of home and childhood
which had no meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the greatest pleasure in his life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How strange it was to think that he, who such a short time ago dared not believe in the
happiness of her loving him, now felt unhappy because she loved him too much!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If only [people] understood that every thought is both false and true! False by one-
sidenedness resulting from man's inability to embrace the whole truth, and true as an
expression of one fact of human endeavor.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
