Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.

People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about "these days," imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "these days" and that human nature changes with the times.

It's not those who are handsome we love, but those we love who are handsome.

You think that your laws correct evil - they only increase it. There is but one way to end evil - by rendering good for evil to all men without distinction.

I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.

We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?

Rest, nature, books, music…such is my idea of happiness.

The most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.

The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt it in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.

It's like scarlet fever: one has to get it over." "Then one should invent a way of inoculating love, like vaccination.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right.

Yes, there is something uncanny, demonic and fascinating in her.

A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.

Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.

It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!

But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.

Without knowledge of what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live, and since I cannot know that, I cannot live either. In an infinity of time, in an infinity of matter, and an infinity of space a bubble-organism emerges while will exist for a little time and then burst, and that bubble am I.

I don't give a damn unless I'm fond of a person;but I'd sacrifice my life for those I am fond of; the rest I'd throttle if they stood in my way...And you may not believe me but if I still set a value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will regenarate me, purify me and elevate me. But you don't understand that.

He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves early in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost.

They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.

Faith is the strength of life. If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, he would not live. If he does not see and recognize the illusory nature of the finite, he believes in the finite; if he understands the illusory nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith he cannot live.