Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

En algunos instantes, después de prolongados sufrimientos, lo que más anhelaba -aunque le habría dado vergüenza confesarlo-era que alguien le tuviese lástima como se le tiene lástima a un niño enfermo. Quería que le acariciaran, que le besaran, que lloraran por él, como se acaricia y consuela a los niños.

The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur—that is, as soon as history begins—that theory explains nothing.

All that spring he was not himself, and went through fearful moments of horror.

And so among us this theory was devised: "All that exists is reasonable. All that exists develops. And it all develops by means of Culture. And Culture is measured by the circulation of books and newspapers. And we are paid money and are respected because we write books and newspapers, and therefore we are the most useful and the best of men.

But the liveliest attention was attracted by occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday, commonplace occurrences.

As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of Prince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real till then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.

The time for fooling himself was over: something new and dreadful was going on inside Ivan Ilyich, something significant, more significant than anything in his whole life. And he was the only one who knew it; the people around him didn't know, or didn't want to know-they thought that everything in the world was going on as before. This was what tormented Ivan Ilyich more than anything.

We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government. We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of mankind. Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests and rights of American citizens are not dearer to us than those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national insult or injury… "We

Weyrother evidently felt himself to be at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead to.

There, in childhood, there had been something so transcendently pleasant that if it would only return he could carry on living. But the person who had lived through all these pleasures no longer existed: it was as though he were reminiscing about some old friend.

O lo que yo llamaba racional no lo era tanto como había pensado, o lo que me parecía irracional no lo era tanto como había pensado.

?nsano?lunun al??amayaca?? ko?ul yoktur, hele de çevresindeki herkesin ayn? ko?ullarda ya?ad???n? görüyorsa.

Que ellos vivan como quieran y yo viviré también como me plazca. No puedo ser sino como soy. No es eso lo que quiero, no, no es eso...

What will come from what I do and from what I will do tomorrow—what will come from my whole life? Expressed differently, the question would be this: Why should I live, why should I wish for anything, why should I do anything? One can put the question differently again: Is there any meaning in my life that wouldn't be destroyed by the death that inevitably awaits me?

Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.

Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized if it is to last. Prince

the mere fact of the death of a near acquaintance aroused, as usual, in all who heard of it the complacent feeling that, "it is he who is dead and not I.

But what's right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by us.

When I saw the head part from the body and how they thumped separately into the box, I understood, not with my mind but with my whole being, that no theory of the reasonableness of our present progress could justify this deed; and that though everybody from the creation of the world had held it to be necessary, on whatever theory, I knew it to be unnecessary and bad; and therefore the arbiter of what is good and evil is not what people say and do, nor is it progress, but it is my heart and I.

Moses gave us a law, but we received the true faith through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God or will ever see God, only his son, who is in the Father, has shown us the path of life.

Alle glücklichen Familien gleichen einander. Jede unglückliche Familie ist auf ihre eigene Art unglücklich.

Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man.

Instead of the former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims- the welfare of the French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a large continent.