“There was within him a deep unexpressed conviction that all would be well, but that one
must not trust to this and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work. And
he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man is never such an egoist as at moments of spiritual exaltation, when it seems to him
that there is nothing in the world more splendid and fascinating than himself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Indeed, ask every man separately whether he thinks it laudable and worthy of a man of this
age to hold a position from which he receives a salary disproportionate to his work; to take
from the people--often in poverty--taxes to be spent on constructing cannon, torpedoes, and
other instruments of butchery, so as to make war on people with whom we wish to be atpeace, and who feel the same wish in regard to us; or to receive a salary for devoting one's
whole life to constructing these instruments of butchery, or to preparing oneself and others for
the work of murder.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He saw either death or the approach of it everywhere. But his undertaking now occupied
him all the more. He had to live his life to the end, until death came. Darkness covered
everything for him; but precisely because of this darkness he felt that his undertaking was the
only guiding thread in this darkness, and he seized it and held on to it with all his remaining
strength.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with
his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but
studiously ignoring them. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon.
Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now,"
he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself,
then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to
transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I must ask what it is you want of me?"
"What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing," she
said, understanding all he had not uttered. "But that I don't want; that's secondary. I want love,
and there is none. So then all is over.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Yes, there is something uncanny, demonic and fascinating in her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and
always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same. When alone he had a
dreadful and distressing desire to call someone, but he knew beforehand that with others
present it would be still worse.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They had to return to the one sure and never-failing resource- slander.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
