Leo Tolstoy

“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”

“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”

“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.”

“And all people live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves, but by the love for them that is in other people.”

“To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can’t eat it.”

“As soon as she had gone out, swift, swift light steps sounded on the parquet, and his bliss, his life, himself - what was best in himself, what he had so long sought and longed for - was quickly, so quickly approaching him. She did not walk but seemed, by some unseen force, to float to him. He saw nothing but her clear, truthful eyes, frightened by that same bliss of love that flooded his heart. Those eyes were shining nearer and nearer, blinding him with their light of love. She stopped close to him, touching him. Her hands rose and dropped on his shoulders.She had done all she could - she had run up to him and given herself up entirely, shyly, blissfully. He put his arms around her and pressed his lips to her mouth that sought his kiss.”

“History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.”

“War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous...”

“People of limited intelligence are fond of talking about "these days," imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "these days" and that human nature changes with the times.”

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

“Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers.”

“The best stories don't come from "good vs. bad" but "good vs. good.”

“Time and Patience.”

“Teach French and unteach sincerity.”

“Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.”

“A man's every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.”

“You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”

“In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.”

“This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. ”

“Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.”

“The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.”

“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”

“When a man sees a dying animal, horror comes over him: that which he himself is, his essence, is obviously being annihilated before his eyes--is ceasing to be. But when the dying one is a person, and a beloved person, then, besides a sense of horror at the annihilation of life, there is a feeling of severance and a spiritual wound which, like a physical wound, sometimes kills and sometimes heals, but always hurts and fears any external, irritating touch.”

“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”

“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ”

“A battle is won by him who is firmly resolved to win it.”

“Kings are the slaves of history.”

“The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action.”

“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals. ”

“Each man lives for himself, uses his freedom to achieve his personal goals, and feels with his whole being that right now he can or cannot do such-and-such an action; but as soon as he does it, this action, committed at a certain moment in time, becomes irreversible, and makes itself the property of history, in which is has not a free but a predestined significance. ”

“God is the same everywhere.”

“Why nowadays there's a new fashion every day.”

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

“I think that when you remember, remember, remember everything like that, you could go on until you remember what was there before you were in the world. ”

“I'm getting old, that's the thing! What's in me now won't be there anymore.”

“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...”

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

“Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.”

“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”

“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.”

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

“What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing!”

“There are such repulsive faces in the world.”

“Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.”

“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”

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

“Everything depends on upbringing. ”

“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. ”

“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.”

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”