Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“if the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.” — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
I have discovered nothing. I have only found out what I knew. I understand the force that in the past gave me… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
There is nothing more harmful to you than improving only your material, animal side of life. There is nothing more beneficial, both… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“I find it difficult now to recall and understand the dreams which then filled my imagination. Even when I can recall them,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the entanglements of life,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning.… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“It was long before I could believe that human learning had no clear answer to this question. For a long time it… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“...but most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“In former days," said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, "in former… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
The wrongfulness, the immorality of eating animal food has been recognized by all mankind during all the conscious life of humanity. Why,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires;… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“No, I'd better not speak of it. It's a secret for me alone, of vital importance for me, and not to be… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“In the past he had been unable to see the great, teh unfathomable, the infinite, in anything. He had only felt that… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“It's as if I had been going downhill when I thought I was going uphill. That's how it was. In society's opinion… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
To say that you can love one person all your life is just like saying that one candle will continue burning as… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
A new conception of life cannot be imposed on men; it can only be freely assimilated. And it can only be freely… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
When we do not love, we sleep, we are children of the dust - but love, and you are a god, you… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“I felt that my whole life was bound to go on in the same solitude and helpless dreariness, from which I myself… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“The question was summed up for him thus: "If I do not accept the answers Christianity gives to the problems of my… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
There was no solution, save that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insolvable: One must… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“Natasha was happy as she had never been in her life. She was at that highest pitch of happiness, when one becomes… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
People jump back and forth in pursuit of pleasures only because they see the emptiness of their lives more clearly than they… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary,… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen... All… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“The worker picked up Pakhom’s spade, dug a grave, and buried him - six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“But does it make any difference now?" he thought. "And what will be there, and what has been done here? Why was… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
“Love hinders death. Love is life. Anything at all that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is - everything… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share Image
These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share
The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God. — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share
“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever precious –… — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share
“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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
“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 Copy Share
“He was not to blame for being born with an irrepressible charachter and a mind some how constrained.” — Leo Tolstoy Copy Share
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
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 Copy Share
