Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

I became convinced that almost all the priests of that religion, the writers, were immoral, and for the most part men of bad, worthless character, much inferior to those whom I had met in my former dissipated and military life;

Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort? How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud!

An hour to suffer, a life-time to live.

Send anyone who preaches war to a special frontline legion -into the assault, into the attack, ahead of everyone.

Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one another. He made his reputation fighting them.

Life is a dream, death is an awakening.

It is not given to man to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

Our real innermost concern was to get as much money and praise as possible. To gain that end we could do nothing except write books and papers.

He saw that the inmost recesses of her soul, that had always hitherto lain open before him, were closed against him.

It isn't that he can't fall in love. But that he does not possess the kind of weakness that is necessary... I always envied him that, and I do even now when I am so happy.

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.

Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous!

Understand that this isn't love. I have been in love but this is not the same. This is not my feeling, but some external force taking possession of me. I left because I decided it could not be, you understand, like a happiness that doesn't exist on earth; but I have struggled with myself and I see that without it there is no life.

All that day it seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole performance.

By virtue of her character, Kitty always assumed the most beautiful things of people, especially those she did not know. And now, making guesses about who was who, what relations they were in, and what sort of people they were, Kitty imagined to herself the most beautiful characters and found confirmation in her observations.

Isn't it distinctly to be seen in the development of each philosopher's theory, that he knows what is the chief significance of life beforehand, just as positively as the peasant Fyodor, and not a bit more clearly than he, and is simply trying by a dubious intellectual path to come back to what everyone knows?

It was awkward for her to admit even secretly to herself that she had fallen in love with a man who would possibly never love her in return, but she consoled herself with the thought that no one would ever know, and she would bear no blame for this love, as long as it remained unspoken, even if it was her first and last love, and it went on for a lifetime.

in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full.

You live in better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you are very likely to lose all you have. You know the proverb, 'Loss and gain are brothers twain.' It often happens that people who are wealthy one day are begging their bread the next.

Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself.

He could not admit that he had known the truth then and was now mistaken, because as soon as he began to think calmly about it, the whole thing fell to pieces; nor could he admit that he had been mistaken then, because he cherished his state of soul at that time, and by admitting that it had been due to weakness he would have profaned those moments.

that in every individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love.

The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man clinging to him. That man did drown. It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over these fearful facts.

Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold. Now