Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

When during those first days he remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what of it? So much the better!

Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal - had seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all regards himself. In that case it was a question of Caius, a man, an abstract man, and it was perfectly true, but he was not Caius, and was not an abstract man; he had always been a creature quite, quite different from all the others.

Stavrovicha, is a selfish, vain, and unattractive creature who deserts her husband in favour of a young officer, Balashev. Her elderly, betrayed

He was swept by a lovely, heart-warming sensation that was quite new to him; the sight of those two little girls had suddenly made him aware that there were such things as other human interests, million miles from his own but no less legitimate.

As a criminal led out to execution knows that he is about to die, yet still looks around and straightens the hat he has put on askew, so Moscow involuntarily went on with her usual life, though she knew that the time of her destruction was near, when all the conventions of life, which people were accustomed to obey, would be broken.

Everything presents itself to me, in the coarsest, most loathsome light.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

Honest work is much better than a mansion.

As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.

He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply.

By words one transmits thoughts to another, by means of art, one transmits feelings.

"A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist."

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter.

All art has this characteristic-it unites people.

Art begins when a man, with a purpose of communicating to other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself and expresses it by certain external signs.

Art should cause violence to be set aside and it is only art that can accomplish this.

In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

You need feeling, emotion, to create. You can't create out of indifference.

If you're not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude, or change your job.

But men are now united in states; that work is done; why now maintain exclusive devotion to one's own state, when this produces terrible evils for all.

... it is the work and not the reward that is precious.

Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone.

Work is the inevitable condition of human life the true source of human welfare.

Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal.