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Marriage Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

45 Marriage quotes by Leo Tolstoy

All Marriage quotes Leo Tolstoy’s page

Leo Tolstoy’s reflections on marriage draw from his narrative mastery, presenting forty‑five passages that examine love, responsibility, and the complexities of human bonds. His literary voice adds depth to each observation, making the collection both poetic and grounded.

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The only happy marriages I know are arranged ones.

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A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.

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“Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.”

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“In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving…

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“Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a…

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The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the…

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“Stepan Arkadyevitch, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort”

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When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.

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“I killed the wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed my wife.”

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“I only know this, that she thanks God for all her tribulations, and, above all, because her husband is dead.”

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“Before any definite step can be taken in a household, there must be either complete division or loving accord between husband and…

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“Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at…

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“Every man experiences what you call love for every pretty woman and least of all for his wife. That is what the…

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The role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the role of a…

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“As a house can be only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted…

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“Here it is. Let's say you're married, you love your wife, but you're attracted by another woman.' 'Excuse me, but I absolutely…

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“The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild…

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“The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly…

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“For love? What antediluvian notions you have! Can one talk of love in these days?" said the ambassador's wife. "What's to be…

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“He had never thought the question over clearly, but vaguely imagined that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful to…

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Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped…

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“But when, as is most often the case, the husband and wife accept the external obligation to live together all their lives…

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In order to carry through any undertaking in family life, there must necessarily be either complete division between the husband and wife,…

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“But in the course of the war they waged against the taiga, scorching it with fire, and attacking it with iron, Makar’s…

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“Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but…

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Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked…

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The goal of our life should not be to find joy in marriage, but to bring more love and truth into the…

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“Next morning, when Semyon woke up, the children were still asleep and his wife had gone over to the neighbour's to borrow…

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“Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a…

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“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all…

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“Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he…

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“Alexei Alexandrovich stood face to face with life, confronting the possibility of his wife loving someone else besides him, and it was…

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“We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education; nor did the idea ever occur to us that very…

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“Stepan Arkadyevitch was a truthful man in his relations with himself. He was incapable of deceiving himself and persuading himself that he…

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“In spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he…

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“a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had…

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... in marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself.

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He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she…

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Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is…

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“Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and agonies of the soul, but all the time his most tormenting tragedy has…

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More by Leo Tolstoy

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…

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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,…

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

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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.

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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…

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

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

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

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