Leo Tolstoy Quotes

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

اننا نبحث عن السعادة غالباً وهي قريبة منّا، كما نبحث في كثير من الأحيان عن النظارة وهي فوق عيوننا.

"They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and eat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.

Every heart has its own skeletons.

A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.

I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

Everything intelligent is so boring.

It's all God's will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

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 loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.