Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

Todas as famílias felizes são iguais. As infelizes o são cada uma à sua maneira

There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences.

Ružan ?in možeš da ne ponoviš i možeš da se pokaješ zbog njega, ali ružne misli ra?aju isklju?ivo ružne ?ini. Ružan ?in samo utire put ružnim ?inima, a ružne misli nezadrživo vuku tim putem.

In order to forgive, one must have lived through what I have lived through, and may God spare her that.

I want to enrich medical science with a new term: Arbeitskur.

Sesungguhnya Muhammad adalah tokoh pembaru dan seorang rasul yang telah mengabdi dengan pengabdian mulia, menunjuki umat kepada cahaya kebenaran. Dan orang yang sepertinya pantas diberikan penghormatan dan penghargaan

My tongue is my enemy. Brothers

I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.

É possível salvar uma pessoa que não quer perder-se; mas se toda a natureza está assim corrompida, pervertida, que a própria perdição lhe parece a salvação, o que fazer? (Aleksei Aleksándrovitch)

Yes: if only a hundredth of the efforts spent in curing diseases were spent in curing debauchery, disease would long ago have ceased to exist, whereas now all efforts are employed, not in extirpating debauchery, but in favoring it, by assuring the harmlessness of the consequences.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

Without knowing what I am, and why I am here, it is impossible to live. Yet I cannot know that, and therefore I can't live,' he said to himself.

No man is satisfied with his fortune, but every man is satisfied with his wit.

He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame. Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him.

Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovitch Vronsky, and one of the finest specimens of the gilded youth of Petersburg.

Ambition was the old dream of his youth and childhood, a dream which he did not confess even to himself, though it was so strong that now his passion was even doing battle with his love

It was in the hands of two ministers, one lady, and two Jews, and all these people, though the way had been paved already with them, Stepan Arkadyevitch had to see in Petersburg.

It is dreadful that one cannot tear our the past by the roots. We cannot tear it out but we can hide the memory of it.

She was, every time she saw him, making the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably superior, impossible in reality) fit with him as he really was

All such questions as, for instance,of the cause of failure of crops, of the adherence of certain tribes to their ancient belief, etc.--questions which, but for the convenient intervention of the official machine are not, and cannot be solved for ages--received full, unhesitating solution.

And since no difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions, they never agreed in any opinion, and had long, indeed, been accustomed to jeer without anger, each at the other's incorrigible aberrations.

He was nine years old; he was a child; he he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul.

With all my soul I wished to be good, but I was young, passionate and alone, completely alone when I sought goodness. Every time I tried to express my most sincere desire, which was to be morally good, I met with contempt and ridicule, but as soon as I yielded to low passions I was praised and encouraged.

If we're laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you've a tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot. . . . Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year . . .