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247d6ee
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Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes gazed wonderingly upon the world, whose horizon hides this real life from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hast prayed for, demanded as thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am that which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I lay in thee grieving because thou didst not recognize me; sometimes I raised my head, op..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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ec229a8
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It was better not to remember such terrible details.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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cde9534
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Since the moment when, at the sigh of his beloved and dying brother, Levin for the first time looked at the questions of life and death in the light of the new convictions, as he called them...he had been less horrified by death than by life without the least knowledge of whence it came, what it is for, why, and what it is. Organisms, their destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, development--the..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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8f83259
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Why did you give me a freedom for which I was unfit? Why did you stop teaching me? If you wished it, if you guided me differently, none of all this would happened. I should not now be punished, for no fault at all, by your indifference and even contempt, and you would not have taken from me unjustly all that I valued in life. Let us be thankful that there is an end of the old emotions and excitements. That day ended a romance of our marri..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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edd2159
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One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life.
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mankind
life
love
natural-laws
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Leo Tolstoy |
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33385de
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Consciously a man lives on his own account in freedom of willbut he serves as an unconscious instrument in bringing about the historical ends of humanity. An act he has once committed is irrecvocable, and that act of his, coinciding in time with millions of acts of others, has an historical value... 'The hearts of kinds are in the hand of God.' The king is the slave of history... Every action that seems to them an act of their own freewill,..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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afeb3bd
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You wait a bit, wait a bit," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling and touching his hand. "I've told you what I know, and I repeat that in this delicate and tender matter, as far as one can conjecture, I believe the chances are in your favor."
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Leo Tolstoy |
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1c11e4f
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Do not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and desires are engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through the rough wilderness of life, which is far from Me.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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548d178
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And I, too, am the same... only there is no love in my heart, or desire for love, no interest in work, not contentment in myself. And how remote and impossible my old religious enthusiasms seem now... and my former abounding life! What once seemed so plain and right - that happiness lay in living for others - is unintelligible now. Why live for others, when life has not attractions even for oneself?
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Leo Tolstoy |
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f3b55ed
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When the examination was over, the doctor looked at his watch, and then Praskovya Fyodorovna informed Ivan Ilyich that it must of course be as he liked, but she had sent today for a celebrated doctor, and that he would examine him, and have a consultation with Mihail Danilovich (that was the name of his regular doctor). 'Don't oppose it now, please. This I'm doing entirely for my own sake,' she said ironically, meaning it to be understood t..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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662e0b0
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She began to wish he would die; yet she did not want him to die because then his salary would cease. And this irritated her against him still more. She considered herself dreadfully unhappy just because not even his death could save her,
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Leo Tolstoy |
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e057811
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Then these moments of perplexity began to recur oftener and oftener, and always in the same form. They were always expressed by the questions: What is it for? What does it lead to? At first it seemed to me that these were aimless and irrelevant questions. I thought that it was all well known, and that if I should ever wish to deal with the solution it would not cost me much effort; just at present I had no time for it, but when I wanted to ..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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c53c1b3
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You understand that the feeling which makes them work is not a feeling of pettiness, ambition, forgetfulness, which you have yourself experienced, but a different sentiment, one more powerful, and one which has made of them men who live with their ordinary composure under the fire of cannon, amid hundreds of chances of death, instead of the one to which all men are subject who live under these conditions amid incessant labor, poverty, and d..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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11ebb0c
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Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I haven't
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Leo Tolstoy |
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105af4d
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Enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in finding it
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Leo Tolstoy |
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a1c87ba
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Only Anna was sad. She knew that now, from Dolly's departure, no one again would stir up within her soul the feelings that had been roused by their conversation. It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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09ab0eb
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Stepan Arkadyevitch was on familiar terms with almost all his acquaintances, and called almost all of them by their Christian names: old men of sixty, boys of twenty, actors, ministers, merchants, and adjutant-generals, so that many of his intimate chums were to be found at the extreme ends of the social ladder, and would have been very much surprised to learn that they had, through the medium of Oblonsky, something in common. He was the fa..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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ee4d94f
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Darya Alexandrovna, in a dressing jacket, and with her now scanty, once luxuriant and beautiful hair fastened up with hairpins on the nape of her neck, with a sunken, thin face and large, startled eyes, which looked prominent from the thinness of her face, was standing among a litter of all sorts of things scattered all over the room, before an open bureau, from which she was taking something. Hearing her husband's steps, she stopped, looki..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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5deae44
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Higher and higher receded the sky, wider and wider spread the streak of dawn, whiter grew the pallid silver of the dew, more lifeless the sickle of the moon...
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Leo Tolstoy |
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43c900a
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What right had I to imagine that she would wish to unite her life with mine? Who and What am I? A man of no account, wanted by no one and of no use to anyone.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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31224e6
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Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding it.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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be7bdd4
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What is the law of nature? Is it to know that my security and that of my family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings--by the terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling within prison walls; by the fear inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians of civilization, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to protect our p..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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c5e2853
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Every man experiences what you call love for every pretty woman and least of all for his wife. That is what the proverb says, and it is a true one. "Another's wife is a swan, but one's own is bitter wormwood."
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Leo Tolstoy |
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3f35c1a
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I find it difficult now to recall and understand the dreams which then filled my imagination. Even when I can recall them, I find it hard to believe that my dreams were just like that: they were so strange and so remote from life.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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d0afb2c
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in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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95943d8
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Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions. Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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11f7fdb
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The scent of flowers grew stronger and came from all sides; the grass was drenched with dew; a nightingale struck up in a lilac bush close by and then stopped on hearing our voices; the starry sky seemed to come down lower over our heads.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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753ccf6
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I love everybody and pity everybody.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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068da29
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As soon as a young man advances toward a woman, directly he falls under the influence of this opium, and loses his head. Long ago I felt ill at ease when I saw a woman too well adorned,--whether a woman of the people with her red neckerchief and her looped skirt, or a woman of our own society in her ball-room dress. But now it simply terrifies me. I see in it a danger to men, something contrary to the laws; and I feel a desire to call a pol..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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c7dd436
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War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military calling is the most highly honored.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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1fb285b
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I've lost my heart to you.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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186c85c
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But a man's relationship to the world is determined not just by his intellect but by his feelings and by his who aggregate of spiritual forces. However much one implies or explains to a person that all that truly exists is no more than an idea, or that everything is made up of atoms, or that the essence of life is substance or will, or that heat, light, movement and electricity are only manifestations of one and the same energy; however muc..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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bf41584
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The constant, obvious flattery, contrary to all evidence, of the people around him [Tsar Nicholas I] had brought him to the point that he no longer saw his contradictions, no longer conformed his actions and words to reality, logic, or even simple common sense, but was fully convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and inconsistent with each other, became sensible, just, and consistent with each other only because he gave t..
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narcissism
self-delusion
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Leo Tolstoy |
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ce6d4d2
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What do you want? What do you want?" he repeated to himself. "What do I want? To live and not to suffer," he answered. And again he listened with such concentrated attention that even his pain did not distract him. "To live? How?" asked his inner voice. "Why, to live as I used to--well and pleasantly." "As you lived before, well and pleasantly?" the voice repeated. And in imagination he began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life...
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Leo Tolstoy |
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193f7f2
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No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, ever lasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to improve, and failures, and continual expectations of happiness that has eluded you and that isn't possible for you.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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f55708d
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It was one of those things that one knows but cannot even tell oneself - so dreadful and shameful it would be to be mistaken.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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f03b428
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Il ne faut jamais rien outrer: One must do nothing in excess
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Leo Tolstoy |
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42056c5
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I and all men have only one firm, incontestable, clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by the reason--it is outside it, and has no causes and can have no effects. "If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect."
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Leo Tolstoy |
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4d396d9
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I've enough pride never to let myself love a man who does not love me.
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pride
unrequited-love
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Leo Tolstoy |
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72ced9d
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All the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried, divine right, and election, and heredity, and balloting, and assemblies and parliaments and senate--all have proved ineffectual. Everyone knows that not one of these methods attains the aim either of entrusting power only to the incorruptible, or of preventing power from being abused. Everyone knows on the contrary that men in authority--be they emperors, ministers, governors, ..
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politics
government-corruption
authority
government
power
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Leo Tolstoy |
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50c42bd
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A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other p..
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Leo Tolstoy |
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e742d52
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The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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075b3c5
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And yet our existence is so organized that every personal enjoyment is purchased at the price of human suffering contrary to human nature.
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Leo Tolstoy |
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62a30d6
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Oh! How good it is to be your age! I remember, and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains of Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of the vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is...
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Leo Tolstoy |