“Sometimes he remembered having heard how soldiers under fire in the trenches, and
having nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. It
seemed to Pierre that all men were like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in
ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in
horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in government service.
'Nothing is without consequence, and nothing is important: it's all the same in the end. The
thing to do is to save myself from it all as best I can,' thought Pierre. Not to see IT, that terrible
IT.”
―
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
“No hay felicidad en la existencia, no hay más que relámpagos de felicidad.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Talent is the capacity to direct concentrated attention upon the subject: "the gift of seeing
what others have not seen.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“what time can be more beautiful than the one in which the finest virtues, innocent
cheerfulness and indefinable longing for love constitute the sole motives of your life?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Am I mad, to see what others do not see, or are they mad who are responsible for all that I
am seeing?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and
physically she had changed for the worse. [...] He looked at her as a man looks at a faded
flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and
ruined it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Levin scowled. The humiliation of his rejection stung him to the heart, as though it were a
fresh wound he had only just received. But he was at home, and at home the very walls are a
support.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The most mentally deranged people are those who see in others indications of insanity
they do not notice in themselves.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“What are you talking about?' cried Lukashka. 'We must go through the middle gates, of
course.”
―
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
“The further one goes, the better the land seems. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and
in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments
when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
