Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them.

In time, things fall its places for a man who know how to wait

Stop robbing others before you give money to beggars. With the same hand that we rob one person, we reward another, giving to the poor the money which we have taken from the even poorer. Better no charity than this kind of charity.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him...

A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, capable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?

Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.

Quos vult perdere dementat [Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad].

Why are you sad?" "Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings

How could you not see that I'm a woman? Yes, a woman, who might belong to anyone - yes, even to you,

He was a very stupid and very self-satisfied and very healthy and very well-washed man, and nothing else.

The same is true of the rich and the lazy. If they do not work but rely on the labor of others, they cannot be good either, no matter how much they pray or sacrifice.

Is it possible that this stranger has now become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately answered, "Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the world.

Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.

They alluded to God's creation of a wife from Adam's rib "and for this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh,

Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live." - Leo Tolstoy quote- from BrainyQuote.com-

Things always go quicker with two working at it.

Not having yet passed through those bitter experiences which enforce upon older years circumspection and coldness, I deprived myself of the pure delight of a fresh, childish instinct for the absurd purpose of trying to resemble grown-up people.

because no one knew that she had only a few days ago refused a man whom she perhaps loved, and refused him because she trusted another.

Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible.

blessed are the poor, the humble, the kind, the generous.

to be loved is in your opinion as great a happiness as to love, and if a man obtains it, it is enough for his whole life. it is a misfortune to feel guilty because you do not something you cannot give

The General belonged to the learned type of military men who believed that liberal and humane views can be reconciled with their profession. But being by nature a kind and intelligent man, he soon felt the impossibility of such a reconciliation.

Una sonrisa iluminó su rostro; pero al mismo tiempo suspiró y su profunda mirada expresó una apacible tristeza. Como si además de la felicidad que experimentaba existiera otra, inaccesible en esta vida, que en aquel momento recordó involuntariamente.

He could find no answer, except life's usual answer to the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is, find forgetfulness. He