“When a man sees a dying animal, horror comes over him: that which he himself is, his
essence, is obviously being annihilated before his eyes--is ceasing to be. But when the dying
one is a person, and a beloved person, then, besides a sense of horror at the annihilation of
life, there is a feeling of severance and a spiritual wound which, like a physical wound,
sometimes kills and sometimes heals, but always hurts and fears any external, irritating
touch.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him,
but she did not succeed in saying anything of it; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm
him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a
long while she could say nothing.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“It seems that only God can know the truth; it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him
alone expect mercy.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“They had supper and went away, and Ivan Ilyich was left alone with the consciousness
that his life was poisoned and was poisoning the lives of others, and that this poison did not
weaken but penetrated more and more deeply into his whole being.
―
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
“When you understand that you will die to-morrow, if not to-day, and nothing will be left,
then everything is so unimportant!... So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with
work - anything so as not think of death”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to
happen”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The old oak, utterly transformed, draped in a tent of sappy dark green, basked faintly,
undulating in the rays of the evening sun. Of the knotted fingers, the gnarled excrecenses, the
aged grief and mistrust- nothing was to be seen. Through the rough, century-old bark, where
there were no twigs, leaves had burst out so sappy, so young, that is was hard to believe that
the aged creature had borne them. "Yes, that is the same tree," thought Prince Andrey, and all
at once there came upon him an irrational, spring feeling of joy and renewal. All the best
moments of his life rose to his memory at once. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, and the dead,
reproachful face of his wife, and Pierre on the ferry, and the girl, thrilled by the beauty of the
night, and that night and that moon- it all rushed at once into his mind.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“War is the most painful act of subjection to the laws of God that can be required of the
human will.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it
unhindered and let it defend itself.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We are all brothers, but I live on a salary paid me for prosecuting, judging, and
condemning the thief or the prostitute whose existence the whole tenor of my life brings
about...We are all brothers, but I live on the salary I gain by collecting taxes from needy
laborers to be spent on the luxuries of the rich and idle. We are all brothers, but I take a
stipend for preaching a false Christian religion, which I do not myself believe in, and which
only serves to hinder men from understanding true Christianity.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Why do you need to be like anyone? You're good as you are,”
―
Leo Tolstoy
