Leo Tolstoy Quotes - Page 2

truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

In the legal respect, after the execution of the supposed incendiaries, the other half of Moscow burned down.

Spring, love, happiness! Are you not weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and always a fraud! There is no spring, no sun, no happiness!

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

There are many faiths, but the spirit is one — in me, and in you, and in him. So that if everyone believes himself, all will be united; everyone be himself and all will be as one.

The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...

They ought to find out how to vaccinate for love, like smallpox.

Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--that's in your hands.

Man lives consciously for himself but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of historical and social ends.

Though the children did not know Levin well and did not remember when they had last seen him, they did not feel towards him any of that strange shyness and antagonism so often felt by children towards grown-up people who 'pretend,' which causes them to suffer as painfully. Pretence about anything sometimes deceives the wisest and shrewdest man, but, however cunningly it is hidden, a child of the meanest capacity feels it and is repelled by it.

There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed.

he was one of those diplomats who like and know how to work, and, despite his laziness, he occasionally spent nights at his desk.

The very nastiest and coarsest, I can't tell you. It is not grief, not dullness, but much worse. It is as if all that was good in me had hidden itself, and only what is horrid remains.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

What better time is there in our lives than when the two best of virtues-innocent gaiety and a boundless yearning for affection-are our sole objects of pursuit?

One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.''But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything...''Life won't leave one alone as it is.