Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

That's how it always is," Koznyshev interrupted him. "We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it's one of our good national characteristics. I mean this faculty of seeing our own shortcomings. But we overdo it. We comfort ourselves with ironic remarks which are always on the tip of the tongue.

If you want to be right, I can give you that satisfaction. You're in the right; but I'm going all the same.

The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not understand," rejoined the lady, "is that only love consecrates marriage, and that the real marriage is that which is consecrated by love.

Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loop-holes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime.

She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it.

And as a sign that everything was now all right in the world, she opened her mouth a fraction, and after arranging her sticky lips better around her old teeth, smacked them and settled down into a state of blissful rest. Levin watched these last movements of hers closely. 'I'm just the same!' he said to himself; 'Just the same! Never mind... All is well.

He was very well aware that in their eyes the position of an unsuccessful lover of a girl, or of any woman free to marry, might be ridiculous. But the position of a man pursuing a married woman, and, regardless of everything, staking his life on drawing her into adultery, has something fine and grand about it, and can never be ridiculous; and so it was with a proud and gay smile under his mustaches that he lowered the opera glass and looked at his cousin. "But

Toda la diversidad, la hermosura, el encanto de la vida, se componen de luces y sombras.

Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's.

The hero of my tale," Tolstoy wrote when he was just twenty-seven, "whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all its beauty, who has been, is, and always will be beautiful— is Truth.

And the dog you're taking with you will be no help to you. You can't get away from yourselves.

insan sanki inad?na yapar gibi gider, hep yaral? yerini çarpar, bunun tek nedeni ise çarpt???n? ancak yaral? yerini vurunca fark etmesidir.

But what desires can always be satisfied despite external circumstances? What are they? Love, self-sacrifice.' He

He positively forgot where he was, and not even hearing what was said, he could not take his eyes off the marvelous portrait. It was not a picture, but a living, charming woman, with black curling hair, with bare arms and shoulders, with a pensive smile on the lips, covered with soft down; triumphantly and softly she looked at him with eyes that baffled him. She was not living only because she was more beautiful than a living woman can be.

I am writing a novel,' Tolstoy informed his friend the critic Nikolai Strakhov on 11 May 1873, referring to the book that was to become Anna Karenina. 'I've been at it for more than a month now and the main lines are traced out. This novel is truly a novel, the first in my life …

Der Mensch, der einen wirklich künstlerischen Eindruck empfängt, hat das Gefühl, dass er das, was ihm die Kunst enthüllt, bereits kannte, aber außer Stande war, den Ausdruck dafür zu finden.

In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving harmony. But when the relations between spouses are uncertain and there is neither the one nor the other, nothing can be undertaken.

He knew now the one thing of importance; and that one thing was at first there, in the drawing room, and then began moving across and came to a standstill at the door. Without turning round he felt the eyes fixed on him, and the smile, and he could not help turning round.

A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.

Well, so you're pleased with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two chess problems, one of them a very nice one — it opens with a pawn. I'll show you.

Totu?i, acum, via?a mea, întreaga mea via??, independent de ceea ce poate s? mi se întâmple într-un moment anume, ea nu numai c? nu e lipsit? de în?eles ca alt?dat?, dar are un sens v?dit: al binelui pe care îl pot pune în ea.

Freedom! What is freedom for? Happiness is only in loving and wishing her wishes, thinking her thoughts, that is to say, not freedom at all — that's happiness!" "But do I know her ideas, her wishes, her feelings?" some voice suddenly whispered to him. The smile died away from his face, and he grew thoughtful. And suddenly a strange feeling came upon him. There came over him a dread and doubt — doubt of everything.

Oh, things are wretched, miserable!' said Oblonsky, and sighed heavily.

He had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was