Desire Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

26 Desire quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy’s 26 reflections on desire expose the tug‑of‑war between personal longing and ethical duty. His narrative voice, both compassionate and critical, invites readers to examine the costs of unchecked yearning.

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Boredom is desire seeking desire.

Leo Tolstoy

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Boredom: the desire for desires.

Leo Tolstoy

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“It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires.”

Leo Tolstoy

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We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.

Leo Tolstoy

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When you feel the desire for power, you should stay in solitude for some time

Leo Tolstoy

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Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the unrest which spring brings with it, full of dreams…

Leo Tolstoy

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“Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that's all there is in his soul," she thought; "as for these…

Leo Tolstoy

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He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected.…

Leo Tolstoy

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Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man's…

Leo Tolstoy

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When the suffering of another creature causes you to feel pain, do not submit to the initial desire to flee from the…

Leo Tolstoy

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“Will the freshness, lightheartedness, the need for love, and strength of faith which you have in childhood ever return? What better time…

Leo Tolstoy

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There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on…

Leo Tolstoy

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Himmlisch ist's wenn ich bezwungen Meine irdische Begier; Aber doch wenn's nich gelungen Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir! Loosely translated: It…

Leo Tolstoy

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Every time I tried to express my most heartfelt desires to be morally good I met with contempt and ridicule; and as…

Leo Tolstoy

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“Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always…

Leo Tolstoy

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Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most indubitable signification is nothing else but a means of obtaining for the rulers their ambitions…

Leo Tolstoy

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“My second sentiment was a craving for love. I wanted every one to know me and to love me. I wanted to…

Leo Tolstoy

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“That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires;…

Leo Tolstoy

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“With all my soul I wished to be good, but I was young, passionate and alone, completely alone when I sought goodness.…

Leo Tolstoy

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“My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but…

Leo Tolstoy

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Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour…

Leo Tolstoy

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“Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of…

Leo Tolstoy

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A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia; so with an Englishman in…

Leo Tolstoy

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“I felt that what I had been standing on had collapsed and that I had nothing left under my feet. What I…

Leo Tolstoy

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“Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt…

Leo Tolstoy

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But the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the thought occurred to him…

Leo Tolstoy

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These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw…

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The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.

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“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious –…

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Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.

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“If you only knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that's what…

Leo Tolstoy

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To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds,…

Leo Tolstoy

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To speak of it would be giving importance to that which has none.

Leo Tolstoy

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Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins.

Leo Tolstoy

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“He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at…

Leo Tolstoy

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Rest, nature, books, music...such is my idea of happiness.

Leo Tolstoy

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“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.”

Leo Tolstoy

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I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command…

Leo Tolstoy

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The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority,…

Leo Tolstoy

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To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind…

Leo Tolstoy

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True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Leo Tolstoy

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