Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

Russia alone is to be the savior of Europe.

As a man cannot lift a mountain, and as a kindly man cannot kill an infant, so a man living the Christian life cannot take part in deeds of violence. Of what value then to him are arguments about the imaginary advantages of doing what is morally impossible for him to do?

I must ask what it is you want of me?" "What can I want? All I can want is that you should not desert me, as you think of doing," she said, understanding all he had not uttered. "But that I don't want; that's secondary. I want love, and there is none. So then all is over.

Constant idleness should be included in the tortures of hell, but it is, on the contrary, considered to be one of the joys of paradise.

Hay ... tantas clases de amor como corazones

Now every time he turned to her, he bent his head, as though he would have fallen at her feet, and in his eyes there was nothing but humble submission and dread. 'I would not offend you' his eyes seemed every time to be saying, 'but I want to save myself, and I don't know how.

He had committed no evil action, but, what was far worse than an evil action, he had entertained evil thoughts, whence evil actions proceed. An evil action may not be repeated, and can be repented of; but evil thoughts generate all evil actions. An evil action only smooths the path for other evil acts; evil thoughts uncontrollably drag one along that path.

The only thing that we know is that we know nothing, and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then—all the combinations made—they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures.

I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse.

If a teacher has only love for the cause, it will be a good teacher. If a teacher has only love for student, as a father, mother, he will be better than the teacher, who read all the books, but has no love for the cause, nor to the students. If the teacher combines love to the cause and to his disciples, he is the perfect teacher.

Book is a nice companion

Both salvation and punishment for man lie in the fact that if he lives wrongly he can befog himself so as not to see the misery of his position.

You have a consistent character yourself and you wish all the facts of life to be consistent, but they never are. For instance you despise public service because you want work always to correspond to its aims, and that never happens. You also want the activity of each separate man to have an aim, and love and family life always to coincide––and that doesn't happen either. All the variety, charm and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.

And indeed, if Evgeny Irtenev was mentally ill, then all people are just as mentally ill, and the most mentally ill are undoubtably those who see signs of madness in others that they do not see in themselves.

The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her called virtuous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived.

I consider jealousy to be insulting to you and degrading to me.

Speransky, either because he appreciated Prince Andrey's abilities or because he thought it as well to secure his adherence, showed off his calm, impartial sagacity before Prince Andrey, and flattered him with that delicate flattery that goes hand in hand with conceit, and consists in a tacit assumption that one's companion and oneself are the only people capable of understanding all the folly of the rest of the world and the sagacity and profundity of their own ideas.

For love? What antediluvian notions you have! Can one talk of love in these days?" said the ambassador's wife. "What's to be done? It's a foolish old fashion that's kept up still," said Vronsky.

Il ne faut jamais rien outrer: One must do nothing in excess

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!

What is precious to us in an author's work is the labor of his soul and not the architectural structure in which he packs his thoughts and feelings.

When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.

Death, the inevitable end of everything, confronted him for the first time with irresistible force.