Leo Tolstoy, Война и мир Quotes

All the horrors of the reign of terror were based on concern for public tranquility.

Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it's always perfectly new.

It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.

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

Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should be.

what time can be more beautiful than the one in which the finest virtues, innocent cheerfulness and indefinable longing for love constitute the sole motives of your life?

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?

everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait . . . there is nothing stronger than these two: patience and time, they will do it all.

oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men's esteem?

I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse.

It hurt her to stir up these feelings, but yet she knew that that was the best part of her soul, and that that part of her soul would quickly be smothered in the life she was leading.

If a man aspires to a righteous life, his first act of abstinence if from injury to animals.

How strange it was to think that he, who such a short time ago dared not believe in the happiness of her loving him, now felt unhappy because she loved him too much!

One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life.

Love does not exist. There exists the physical need for intercourse, and the rational need for a mate in life.

God knows of love

That one must either explain life to oneself so that it does not seem to be an evil mockery by some sort of devil, or one must shoot oneself.

I consider jealousy a humiliating and degrading feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it.

He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday, and there was the day before...

But that's the whole aim of civilization: to make everything a source of enjoyment.

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them.

Read the best books first, otherwise you’ll find you do not have time. - Henry David Thoreau

My field was God’s earth. Wherever I ploughed, there was my field. Land was free. It was a thing no man called his own. Labor was the only thing men called their own.

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

He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to reply.

Everyone had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire.

There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way.

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

Christianity with its doctrine of humility of forgiveness of love is incompatible with the state with its haughtiness its violence its punishment its wars.

Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.

The strongest of all warriors are these two-Time and Patience.

Happiness does not depend on outward things but on the way we see them.

To love one's neighbors to love one's enemies to love everything - to love God in all His manifestations - human love serves to love those dear to us but to love one's enemies we need divine love.

All happy families resemble one another every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Man is meant for happiness and this happiness is in him in the satisfaction of the daily needs of his existence.

I am used to praying when I am alone thank God. But when I come together with other people when I need more than ever to pray I still cannot get used to it.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity.

Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life and avoid it as much as possible.

Work is the inevitable condition of human life the true source of human welfare.

War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it.

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

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life - becoming a better person.