Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

All that people sincerely believe in must be true; it may be differently expressed but it cannot be a lie, and therefore if it presents itself to me as a lie, that only means that I have not understood it.

When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the suffering one, but on the contrary, come closer, as close as you can to him who suffers, and try to help him.

Vronsky's interest in art and the Middle Ages did not last long. He had sufficient taste for art to be unable to finish his picture. He ceased painting it because he was dimly conscious that its defects, little noticeable at first, would become striking if he went on.

You'll die and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking.

If there be a single law governing the actions of men, freewill cannot exist, for man's will would be subject to that law.

Why did it happen this way and not otherwise? Because this is how it happened.

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.

El fin de la civilización consiste en convertir todas las cosas en un placer.

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.

Ayaklar?n? indirdi, kolunun üzerine yan yatt? ve birden kendine ac?maya ba?lad?. Gerasim'in biti?ik odaya geçmesini bekledi, sonra kendini b?rakt? ve çocuklar gibi a?lamaya ba?lad?. Umars?zl???na, korkunç yaln?zl???na, insanlar?n ac?mas?zl???na, Tanr?'n?n ac?mas?zl???na, Tanr?'n?n yoklu?una a?l?yordu.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women.

What is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me.

She did not want to speak of it, to trivialize this feeling with imprecise words.

Speeches, however eloquent and profound they may be, when put into the mouth of dramatic characters, if they be superfluous or unnatural to the position and character, destroy the chief condition of dramatic art—the illusion, owing to which the reader or spectator lives in the feelings of the persons represented...

music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a certain condition.

No hay felicidad en la existencia, no hay más que relámpagos de felicidad.

one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!

I don't understand," he said, understanding her.

All the evil in man, one would think, should disappear on contact with Nature, the most spontaneous expression of beauty and goodness.

What does it mean that thirty thousand men, not athletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred million vigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?

Na maior parte das vezes, discutimos com ardor apenas porque não conseguimos de maneira alguma compreender o que exatamente o nosso adversário quer demonstrar.

And it occurs to no one that to acknowledge a greatness not commensurate with the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness and immeasurable meanness.

And I looked out for miracles, complained that I did not see a miracle which would convince me. A material miracle would have persuaded me. And here is a miracle, the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding me on all sides, and I never noticed it!

My love keeps growing more passionate and egoistic, while his is waning and waning, and that's why we're drifting apart