“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, could know his future life in full
detail, he would have nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of humanity. If it had a
programme of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign
that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in the same place
―
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
“Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding
him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of
comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others
are surrounded by the same complexity as he is.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“No one is satisfied with his fortune,and everyone is satisfied with his wit.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Love..." she repeated slowly, in a musing voice, and suddenly, while disentangling the
lace, she added: "The reason I dislike this word because it means such a great deal to me, far
more than you can understand.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as
grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own
body.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly
pure.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“...the majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to assure
themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the
one which coincides with the truth.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and
the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
―
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
