Leo Tolstoy, Война и мир Quotes
I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.
But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is outside the chain of cause and effect.
I felt a wish never to leave that room - a wish that dawn might never come, that my present frame of mind might never change.
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves.
And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy.
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.
The true meaning of Christ's teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.
And not only the pride of intellect, but the stupidity of intellect. And, above all, the dishonesty, yes, the dishonesty of intellect. Yes, indeed, the dishonesty and trickery of intellect.
What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.
And all these people lived not by reason of any care they had for themselves, but by the love for them that was in other people.
And the angel said - "I have learned that every man lives not through care of himself, but by love".
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.
We spend our lives trying to unlock the mystery of the universe, but there was a Turkish prisoner, Bahá’u’lláh, in Akka, Palestine who had the Key.
For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes, and the distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.
Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.
They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.
When I have one foot in the grave, I will tell the whole truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me and say, "Do what you like now."
It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a stupid delusion.
You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work... if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.
