Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one asks.

The man who is at a lower level but is moving onward toward perfection is living a more moral, a better life, is more fully carrying out Christ's teaching, than the man on a much higher level of morality who is not moving onward toward perfection.

but she has such wonderful depth of feeling.

for which cause a man will leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall be one flesh',

Loss and gain are brothers twain.

Levin felt that in his soul, in the very bottom of his soul, his brother Nikolai, despite the ugliness of his life, was not more in the wrong than those who despised him.

Maybe its because i rejoice over what i have and don't grieve over what i don't have".

I am crushed, I am annihilated, I am no longer a man!

Toporóff, like all those who are quite destitute of the fundamental religious feeling that recognizes the equality and brotherhood of men, was fully convinced that the common people were creatures entirely different from himself, and that the people needed what he could very well do without, for at the bottom of his heart he believed in nothing, and found such a state very convenient and pleasant.

The girls noticed that Volodia, who was generally so talkative and gay, seldom spoke now and never smiled and on the whole did not seem glad to be at home. He only addressed his sisters once during dinner and then his remark was strange. He pointed to the samovar and said: "In California they drink gin instead of tea." He, too, seemed to be busy with thoughts of his own, and, to judge from the glances that the two boys occasionally exchanged, their thoughts were identical.

No one knew better than Stepan Arkadyevitch how to hit on the exact line between freedom, simplicity, and official stiffness necessary for the agreeable conduct of business.

that day, at that hour, there took place in her heart a complete severance from all her old life, and a quite different, new, utterly strange life had begun for her,

When he had joined the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.

The sensation produced by Princess Myakaya's speeches was always unique, and the secret of the sensation she produced lay in the fact that though she spoke not always appropriately, as now, she said simple things with some sense in them. In the society in which she lived such plain statements produced the effect of the wittiest epigram.

The coffee was never served. It boiled over, spattered them all, and wet a costly tablecloth and the baroness's dress. But it served the end that was desired for it gave rise to many jests and merry peals of laughter.

I not only understood her, but it was just that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that soul I loved in her.

he would have been considered quite a suitable match. But Levin was in love, and therefore Kitty seemed to him so perfect in every respect, so transcending everything earthly, and he seemed to himself so very earthly and insignificant a creature, that the possibility of his being considered worthy of her by others or by herself was to him unimaginable.

an event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.

Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart.

I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions. When Germans start being accurate there's no end to it!

The old with the old, the young with the young, the hostess by the tea table, on which there were exactly the same cakes in a silver basket as the Panins had at their soiree - everything was exactly the same as with everyone else.

Salvation does not lie in the rituals and profession of faith, but in a lucid understanding of the meaning of one's life.

If you look for perfection, you will never be content.

No one thing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions under which every organic, elemental event of life is accomplished.