“For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes, and the distant and
impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human
wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not
be broken.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A
quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is
easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one
hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is
my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what
more can the heart of a man desire?
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the
achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have
the right to do that, haven't I?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Men never understand what honor is, though they're always talking about it”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I don’t count life as life without love”
―
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 fulfillment 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 know 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 guessed of what it
consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless. I had as it were lived, lived, and walked,
walked, till I had come to a precipice and saw clearly that there was nothing ahead of me but
destruction. It was impossible to stop, impossible to go back, and impossible to close my eyes
or avoid seeing that there was nothing ahead but suffering and real death--complete
annihilation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
