Leo Tolstoy Quotes (295 Quotes)

Ah, if everyone was as sensitive as you! There's no girl who hasn't gone through that. And it's all so unimportant!

But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.

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.

The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.

When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation.

But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.

Her motherly instinct told her that there was too much of something in Natasha, and that it would prevent her from being happy.

It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

One must be cunning and wicked in this world.

The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.

What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing!

All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.

But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such a stupid occupation.

In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

The question of how things will settle down is the only important question...

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

But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass.

Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.

It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

Pierre had for the first time experienced that strange and fascinating feeling in the Slobodsky palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth and power and life, all that men build up and guard with such effort ,is only worth anything through the joy with which it can all be cast away.

The subject of history is the life of peoples and of humanity. To catch and pin down in words--that is, to describe directly the life, not only of humanity, but even of a single people, appears to be impossible.

Whatever question arose, a swarm of these drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of those who were disputing honestly.

All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the world except her, and they had all the usual human feelings and were very ordinary girls; while the other class -herself alone- had no weaknesses and was superior to all humanity.

Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.

He went down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, but he saw her, as one sees the sun, without looking.

In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.

Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.

Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

Kings are the slaves of history.

Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly pure.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...

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.

And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.

Enough or not...it will have to do

I ... having filled my life with the spiritual blessings Christianity gave me, brimful of these blessings and living by them, I, like a child, not understanding them, destroy them -- that is, I wish to destroy that by which I live.

Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox.

A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.

Dumnezeu este doar unul s,i acelas,i pretutindeni.

How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what?... All will end in death, all!

Lay me down like a stone oh God, and raise me up like a new bread"."

Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.