“Only during a period of war does it become obvious how millions of people can be
manipulated. People, millions of people, are filled with pride while doing things which those
same people actually consider stupid, evil, dangerous, painful, and criminal, and they strongly
criticize these things—but continue doing them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked
them.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to
town.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human
wisdom.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Not a word, not a movement of yours will I ever forget, nor can I...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“We are conscious of the force of man's life, and we call it freedom”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“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
“We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a subject however
trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions
if one's entire attention is devoted to it.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“[Pierre] involuntarily started comparing these two men, so different and at the same time
so similar, because of the love he had for both of them, and because both had lived and both
had died.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“And then all at once love turns up, and you're done for, done for.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Don’t you know that you are all my life to me? ...But peace I do not know, and can’t give to
you. My whole being, my love...yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You
and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for
you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune...or of happiness-what happiness!...Is it
impossible?"
―
Leo Tolstoy
“I can’t think of you and myself apart. You and I are the same to me”
―
Leo Tolstoy
