Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.

All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it." - Vronksy {Anna Karenina}

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

Every lie is a poison; there are no harmless lies. Only the truth is safe. Only the truth gives me consolation - it is the one unbreakable diamond.

I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it

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

Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?

Every heart has its own skeletons.

They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.

Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.

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.

Everything intelligent is so boring.

I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back.

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

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

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.

Music is the shorthand of emotion