Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

He was in a full possession of facile, refined and agreeable intellect which he used to maintain his power and strengthen and increase his popularity.

But in the course of the war they waged against the taiga, scorching it with fire, and attacking it with iron, Makar's fathers and grandfathers, almost without knowing it, became themselves a rude part of it. They married Yakut women, and adopted the language and customs of their wives, their own features of the Russian race to which they belonged becoming obliterated and fading altogether with time.

He prescribed more physical exercise as far as possible, and as far as possible less mental strain, and above all no worry—in other words, just what was as much out of Alexey Alexandrovitch's power as abstaining from breathing.

The Karenins, husband and wife, continued living in the same house, met everyday, but were complete strangers to one another. Alexey Alexandrovitch made it a rule to see his wife everyday, so that the servants might have no grounds for suppositions, but avoided dining at home. Vronsky was never at Alexey Alexandrovitch's house, but Anna saw him away from home, and her husband was aware of it

Only now did Pierre understand the full force of human vitality and the saving power of the shifting of attention that has been put in man, similar in steam engines, which releases the extra steam as soon as the pressure exceeds a certain norm.

Love those that hate you, but to love those one hates is impossible

He would not have understood … yet perhaps he would.' 'I love you awfully!' Natasha suddenly said. 'Awfully, awfully!' 'No, he would not have approved,' said Pierre, after reflection.

I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him up not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to get up but could not, tried to move his arm and could not, to move his leg and also could not, to turn his head and could not. He was surprised but not at all disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was not at all disturbed by that either.

Her maternal instinct told her that Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would not be happy.

Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is strained to such a degree that it will certainly break," said Pierre (as those wha examine the actions of any government have always said since governments began).

Ninguém está satisfeito com os bens que possui, mas todos estão satisfeitos com a inteligência que têm.

Böyle i?te, diyordu. Dostumuz Konstantin Dmitriç ne yetenekli bir gençti. Oysa ?imdi nerede o eski Konstantin Dmitriç! O zamanlar bilimi de severdi. Üniversiteden ç?kt???nda insanlara özgü dü?ünceleri vard?. ?imdi ise yeteneklerinin yar?s? kendi kendini aldatmaya, öteki yar?s? da bu aldat??? hakl? göstermeye yönelmi? durumda. ileti?im yay?nlar?. syf :441.

He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony

in every man, there were two beings: one the spiritual, seeking only that kind of happiness for him self which should tend towards the happiness of all; the other, the animal man, seeking only his own happiness, and ready to sacrifice to it the happiness of the rest of the world.

to stop loving and, at the same time, fall in love means to love twice as strong than before.

What had become of his usually quiet and firm manner and the carelessly calm expression of his face? Every time he turned toward Anna he slightly bowed his head as if he wished to fall down before her, and in his eyes there was an expression of submission and fear. 'I do not wish to offend,' his every look seemed to say, 'I only wish to save myself, but I do not know how.

Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow, nor the burning of Moscow, nor anything else, could seem of importance to Natasha.

It was futile class of people who discussed not merely science and poetry but even the ways of governing men

He could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life, are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom. A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of life.

We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,

At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself understood it.

There are two sides to each man's life: his personal life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental, swarmlike life, where man inevitably fulfills the laws prescribed for him. Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.

Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.

An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle.