Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

The hearts of kings are in the hands of God.

With those about him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear and respect as few hard-hearted men would have aroused. Although

paying the least attention to her severe remark—and

An Austrian punctuality combined with Russian bravery

I think ... if there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

Çok çabuk olmam gerek,çok çabuk,hemen ?u anda bamba?ka biri olmam ve yeni bir ya?ama ba?lamam gerek

He remembered about [name], about his death, and involuntarily started comparing these two men, so different and at the same time so similar, because of the love he had for both of them, and because both had lived and both had died.

Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in this life I did not and do not understand.

there was a new feature in Pierre which won him the favor of all people: this was the recognition of the possibility for each person of thinking, feeling, and looking at things in his own way; the recognition of the impossibility of changing a person's opinion with words. This legitimate peculiarity of each person, which formerly had troubled and irritated Pierre, now constituted the basis of the sympathy and interest he took in people.

Suffering, steadily increasing, did its part in preparing him for death.

A espécie mais elevada dos animais, a espécie humana, devia, para se manter na luta contra os outros animais, assemelhar-se em tudo a um enxame de abelhas; não se multiplicar até ao infinito. Devia, como as abelhas, criar assexuados, isto é, caminhar para a continência e não para o sensualismo para o qual está organizada a vida moderna.

To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. (a reference to a Tom Paine quote)

European countries unresistingly submitted to the introduction of general military service--i.e., to a state of slavery involving a degree of humiliation and submission incomparably worse than any slavery of the ancient world.

He studied the people of Moscow at the theaters, in the clubs, in the streets, looking for the types he needed. A great many of his fictional characters, if not all of them, had real-life models.

Not as we ran, shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!

self-abnegation

I don't think anything," she said, "but I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be….

Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a bridge over a precipice, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Aleksey Aleksandrovich had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.

On what terms is the will of the masses transferred to a single person? On condition that he expresses the will of the whole people. In other words, power is power. Which is to say that power is a word with a meaning we cannot understand.

It was as if the working of his head had stripped the main screw that held his life together. The screw wouldn't go in or come out; it just turned without biting on anything, always in the same hole, and he couldn't stop it turning.

without any conscientious scruples condoning impurity in themselves, required ideal and angelic purity in their women...

Formerly each separate desire caused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had been satisfied by a bodily function that gave pleasure; but now privation and suffering received no satisfaction, and the attempt at satisfaction caused new suffering.

consider me your friend, and if you need help, advice, or simply to pour out your soul to somebody - not now, but when your soul is clear - remember me.