Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

Nekhlúdoff clearly saw that all these people were arrested, locked up, exiled, not really because they transgressed against justice or behaved unlawfully, but only because they were an obstacle hindering the officials and the rich from enjoying the property they had taken away from the people.

In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss, who was fond of such things, made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natasha's grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past, and she began to recover physically.

But who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one's neighbor reason could never discover, because it's irrational.

The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met, Kitty's eyes said: "Who are you? What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't suppose," her eyes added, "that I would force my acquaintance on you, I simply admire you and like you." "I like you too, and you're very, very sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time," answered the eyes of the unknown girl.

Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in the faintly perceptible smile.

She repeated continually, "My God! my God!" But neither "God" nor "my" had any meaning to her.

While I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope left and all the same I doubt everything.

The fate of books depends on the understanding of those who read them.

He wants to prove to me that his love for me must not interfere with his freedom

The question how to live had hardly begun to grow a little clearer to him, when a new, insoluble question presented itself—death.

The Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.

Praštati ne zna?i samo re?i: praštam, nego iš?upati iz srca srdnju, zlo ose?anje prema onom ko nas je uvredio. A da to u?inimo, treba samo da se setimo svojih greha; a kad se njih setimo, zacelo ?emo na?i u sebi još gorih stvari nego što su one zbog kojih se srdimo.

I know more of the world than you do," she said. "I know how men like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their home and wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between them and their families. I don't understand it, but it is so.

To Konstantin Levin the country was good first because it afforded a field for labor, of the usefulness of which there could be no doubt. To Sergey Ivanovitch the country was particularly good, because there it was possible and fitting to do nothing.

No sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest, that's a universal principle, a philosophical principle

The aim of the artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably but to make people love life in all its countless inexhaustible manifestations.

Children's and Household Tales (German: Kinder- und Hausmärchen) is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales (German: Grimms Märchen).

As his father saw it, he did not want to learn what was taught. But in fact, he could not learn it. He could not, because there were demands in his soul that were more exacting for him than those imposed by his father and the pedagogue. These demands were conflicting, and he fought openly with his educators.

The dog gave the meat to the ass and the ass gave hay to the dog and both went hungry

Each believed that the life he himself led was the only real life and the life led by his friend was nothing but an illusion.

Occasionally she glanced at him, asking with her glance, 'Is this what I think?' "I understand,' she said, blushing. "What is this word?' he said, pointing to the "n' that signified the word "never." .... She wrote: t, I, c,g,n,o,a.

Then she thought of how life could still be happy, and how tormentingly she loved and hated him, and how terribly her heart was pounding.

Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

I threw it away feeling sorry to have vainly destroyed a flower that looked beautiful in its proper place. How many different plant lives man destroys to support his own existence.