1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

Speransky, either because he appreciated Prince Andrey's abilities or because he thought it as well to secure his adherence, showed off his calm, impartial sagacity before Prince Andrey, and flattered him with that delicate flattery that goes hand in hand with conceit, and consists in a tacit assumption that one's companion and oneself are the only people capable of understanding all the folly of the rest of the world and the sagacity and profundity of their own ideas.

He stepped down trying not to look long at her, as though she were the sun, yet he saw her as one sees the sun, without looking.

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.

Лёвин помнил, как в то время, когда Николай был в периоде набожности, постов, монахов, служб церковных, когда он искал в религии помощи, узды на свою страстную натуру, никто не только не поддержал его, но все, и он сам, смеялись над ним. Его дразнили, звали его Ноем, монахом; а когда его прорвало, никто не помог ему, а все с ужасом и омерзением отвернулись.

What is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world!

I understood that men only think that they live by caring only about themselves: in reality they live by love alone.

He was always in a hurry to get where he was not.

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