Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

It is only possible to capture prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to catch a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and tactics, as the Germans did.

Her slender bare arms and neck were not beautiful—compared to Hélène's her shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Hélène seemed, as it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned her person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first time, who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this was absolutely necessary.

An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he's a thief is simply la constatation d'un fait.

Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!

They come together, like tomorrow, to kill each other they slaughter and maim tens of thousands of men, and the they say their prayers of thanksgiving of having slaughtered so many people (inflating the numbers), and proclaim victory, supposing that the more people slaughtered, the greater the merit How God does look down and listen to them!

Those who don't believe in the spiritual foundations of their faith, who only pay lip service to the outer shell of their religious rituals, cannot be tolerant of others.

And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. 'How good and how simple!' he thought. 'And the pain?' he asked himself. 'What has become of it? Where are you, pain?' He turned his attention to it. 'Yes, here it is. Well, what of it? Let the pain be

If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars," he said. "And that would be splendid," said Pierre. Prince Andrew smiled ironically. "Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about. . . ." "Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre. "What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going . . ." He paused. "I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!

He, moreover, did not, as Socrates did, transmit His teaching to informed and literate men, but spoke to a crowd of illiterate men

I humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That's the only favor I ask of my gracious brothers.—Nikolai Levin.

Este uimitor cât de r?spândit? este iluzia c? frumuse?ea echivaleaz? cu binele.

He walked down, trying to avoid looking at her for too long, as if she were the sun, but like the sun, he could still see her even when he was not looking at her.

but a new feeling of love for my children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the present time.

Stepan Arkadyich smiled. He knew so well this feeling of Levin's, knew that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two sorts: one sort was all the girls in the world except her, and these girls had all human weaknesses and were very ordinary girls; the other sort was her alone, with no weaknesses and higher than everything human.

Will the freshness, unconcern, need for love and strength of faith you posses as a child ever return? What time could have been better than when the two finest virtues - innocent gaiety and a limitless need for love - were life's only impulses? Where are those ardent prayers? Where is the best gift - those pure tears of tenderness? A comforting angel would fly down to dry those tears with a smile and waft sweet reveries into the uncorrupted imagination of childhood.

Anna was entering the drawing room. Holding herself extremely straight as always, with her quick, firm and light step, which distinguished her from other society women,

Only by assuming an infinitesimally small unit for observation - a differential of history (that is, the common tendencies of men) - and arriving at the art of integration (finding the sum of the infinitesimals) can we hope to discover the laws of history.

feeling consolation in the sense that he had found to which division of regulating principles this new circumstance could be properly referred.

There is only one way to improve society, which is for all of us to improve ourselves. For this to happen, you need do only one thing: improve your inner self.

you talk of Bonaparte—why, when he was working toward his goal, he went forward step by step; he was free; he had nothing except his goal to consider, and he attained it. But tie yourself to a woman and you're bound hand and foot—all freedom gone.

But a commander in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based on strategics and tactics,

She said to herself: "No, just now I can't think of it, later on, when I am calmer." But this calm for thought never came; every time the thought rose of what she had done and what would happen to her, and what she ought to do, a horror came over her and she drove those thoughts away. "Later, later," she said—"when I am calmer.

Alphonse Karr said a capital thing before the war with Prussia: 'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance-guards, for the front of every storm, of every attack, to lead them all!

there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they