“The combination of causes of phenomena is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. But
the impulse to seek causes is innate in the soul of man. And the human intellect, with no
inkling of the immense variety and complexity of circumstances conditioning a phenomenon,
any one of which may be separately conceived of as the cause of it, snatches at the first and
most easily understood approximation, and says here is the cause.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Many people have ideas on how others should change; few people have ideas on how
they should change. ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had
really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end
everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it
was terrible but true”
―
Leo Tolstoy
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling.
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Oh, it's awful! oh dear, oh dear! awful!" Stepan Arkadyevitch kept repeating to himself, and
he could think of nothing to be done. "And how well things were going up till now! how well we
got on! She was contented and happy in her children; I never interfered with her in anything; I
let her manage the children and the house just as she liked. It's true it's bad HER having been
a governess in our house. That's bad! There's something common, vulgar, in flirting with one's
governess. But what a governess!" (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland
and her smile.) "But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand. And the worst
of it all is that she's already... it seems as if ill-luck would have it so! Oh, oh! But what, what is
to be done?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything was made bright by her. She was the smile that shed light all around her.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Everything that I Know, I Know Only Because I Love...”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another
sentiment.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on
earth”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“Those whom God wishes to destroy he drives mad.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way
because I am staggering from side to side! ”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“The feelings resembled memories; but memories of what? Apparently one can remember
things that have never happened.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“He felt that in the depth of his soul something had been put in its place, settled down, and
laid to rest.”
―
Leo Tolstoy
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
―
Leo Tolstoy
