Leo Nicolayevich, what is madness?" I asked him … The reply followed. "It is selfishness," he explained, "the narrowing of one's attention to oneself… - Victor Lebrun

Nature is like a woman worthy of being placed on a pedestal. In order fully to understand and appreciate her, it is necessary to live with her a long time in intimate proximity.

Persistent and undiscerning almost to the point of criminality as far as resources were concerned, this woman <nowiki>[</nowiki>Sophia Tolstaya] was of immeasurable hindrance to her husband, her children and humankind as a whole.

A genius, an eighty-two year-old thinker and author, loved and respected by the whole world, having to flee like a criminal from his own home! To flee from the bottomless abyss created between persons having dissimilar guiding instincts! Through the cold impenetrable autumn night, Tolstoy ran alone to the nearest stable through the large apple orchard. And behind him, the terrifying specter of being caught and again made to drown in the insufferable surroundings in which he had been suffocated for all of thirty years! Before him, finally, lay moral freedom, so long and so earnestly awaited! Finally, the possibility, though not for long, though only until death, of relief from the pressures on his mind! The possibility of carrying out his much revered duty before his conscience and before toiling humankind! He had been hindered in life. Now he can at last succeed in dying with dignity.