Quotes from Leo Tolstoy

How was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God! . . .

It's just this, my dear boy. One must do one of two things: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one's rights in it; or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as I do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.

El destino nos hace malas o buenas pasadas. Nuestra felicidad, amigo mío, es como el agua en las redes del pescador. Se las echa al mar y se hinchan; se las saca y se deshinchan. Así es la vida.

When he did not think, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of two possible courses of action was the better and which was the worse, and as soon as he did not act rightly, he was at once aware of it.

Es nek? negribu pier?d?t, vienk?rši- es gribu dz?vot; nedar?t ?auna nevienam citam, iz?emot sevi pašu. Uz to man ir ties?bas, vai ne.?

Pierre's insanity consisted in the fact that he did not wait, as before, for personal reasons, which he called people's merits, in order to love them, but love overflowed his heart, and, loving people without reason, he discovered the unquestionable reasons for which it was worth loving them.

The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone. The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment.

Kutuzov looked at him with eyes wide with dismay, and then took off his cap and crossed himself. 'God rest his soul! May the Lord's will be done with all of us!' He sighed deeply and was silent. 'I loved and respected him, and I sympathize with you with all my heart.' He embraced

the assertion that you live in a lie while I live in the truth is the most cruel thing one person can say to another...

As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.

It is no good deceiving oneself. It is all -- vanity! Happy is he who has not been born: death is better than life, and one must free oneself from life.

I remember her praying!' he thought. 'You could tell she was putting all her soul into her prayers. Yes, that's the kind of faith that moves mountains. I'm sure her prayers will be answered.

You do the best you can and try not to think about the opinion of others.

You will see war not as a beautiful, orderly, and gleaming formation, with music and beaten drums, streaming banners and generals on prancing horses, but war in its authentic expression - as blood suffering and death.

A causa della presunzione con la quale parlava nessuno comprese se ciò che aveva detto fosse molto intelligente oppure molto stupido.

trouble lasts an hour, but life lasts for ever!

God's spirit, living inside you, will reward you instantly, and this spiritual reward is better than anything anyone else can give you.

That's how it's always done with us, all the wrong way round!' the Russian officers and generals said after the battle of Tarutino, just as people speak now, letting it be felt that some fool somewhere does things that way, the wrong way round, but we would not do things that way. But people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about or are deliberately deceiving themselves.

La energía se basa en el amor y no es posible adquirir amor a la fuerza.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied. And it's true, as papa says,—that when we were brought up there was one extreme—we were kept in the basement, while our parents lived in the best rooms; now it's just the other way—the parents are in the wash house, while the children are in the best rooms. Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children.

long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.

that grief and this joy were alike beyond the ordinary conditions of life; they were openings, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime.

It most often happens that you argue hotly only because you can't understand what precisely your opponent wants to prove.

To love life is to love God.