Leo Tolstoy, Война и мир Quotes

Art should cause violence to be set aside and it is only art that can accomplish this.

In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.

Enough or not...it will have to do

Commit no act that is contrary to love.

There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.

Prayer is an invisible tool which is wielded in a visible world.

That only shows you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him

A holy spirit lives within you.

We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble?

If every man could act as he chose, the whole of history would be a tissue of disconnected accidents.

Here I am...wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end--that there is such a thing as death.

I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful to you.

Anna smiled,as people smile at the weaknesses of those they love. . .

The ideas of the wise have been tested by centuries. Everything medium is lost and only original, deep and useful things are left.

In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.

We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us.

When one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair!

It's not so much that he can't fall in love, but he has not the weakness necessary.

Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?

No matter when, at whatever moment, if she were asked what she was thinking about she could reply quite correctly - one thing, her happiness and her unhappiness.

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.

He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly

There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that, whatever the outcome, there will always be people to say: 'I said then that it would be so'

There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth.

The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me?

Children: a torment and nothing more.

Seize the moment of happiness... love and be loved.

Whenever my life came to a halt, the questions would arise: Why? And what next?

What an immense mass of evil must result...from allowing men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.

I love her not with my mind or my imagination, but with my whole being. Loving her I feel myself to be an integral part of all God's joyous world.

Well, so it isn't time yet to die, is it?

One is ashamed to say how little is needed for all men to be delivered from those calamities which now oppress them; it is only needful not to lie.

Giving alms is only a virtuous deed when you give money that you yourself worked to get.

One of the most obtuse superstitions is the superstition of the scientists who say that man can exist without faith.

Pierre was one of those people who are strong only when they feel themselves perfectly pure.

I was now prepared to accept any faith so long as it did not demand a direct denial of reason, which would have been a deceit.

but that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite ordinary occurrence.

When politics and home life have become one and the same thing, [...] then,[...] it is evident that we will be in a state of total liberty or anarchy.

Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."- Anna Karenina {Anna Karenina}

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

We are asleep until we fall in Love!

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

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

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

...suffering and freedom have their limits...those limits are very near together.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

Este incredibil cât de completă este iluzia care ne face să credem că frumuseţea este în genere bunătate.

Dumnezeu este doar unul şi acelaşi pretutindeni.

Our life has been joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its own chastisement.

He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree.