1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy

the same question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?"... p982

Если допустить, что жизнь человеческая может управляться разумом, то уничтожится сама возможность жизни.

One Cossack with a thin face burnt black by the sun, and evidently dead drunk, lay flat on his back under a wall which had been in the shade an hour or two earlier but was now exposed to the fierce slanting rays of the sun.

—He aqui como acabo mi vida. Nos moriremos y no quedara nada de nosotros. Por que tenemos que pecar, pues?

Kitty se hotărî să caute și ea nenorociți, oriunde s-ar fi aflat, să-i ajute din toate puterile, să le împartă Evanghelii și să citească din ele bolnavilor, criminalilor, muribunzilor. O ispitea mai ales gândul de a le citi ucigașilor.

Ona ništa ne radi, i sasvim je zadovoljna." Ljevin je to u duši osuđivao; a još nije poimao da se ona baš sprema za period rada koji za nju mora nastupiti, kada će istovremeno biti i žena svoga muža, i domaćica u kući, i kada će nositi, hraniti i vaspitavati decu. On nije poimao da ona to zna čulom, i spremajući se za taj strašni posao ne ukorava sebe za trenutke bezbrižnosti i ljubavne sreće kojima se sada veselo koristi dok svija svoje buduće gnezdo.

How can one be well...when one suffers morally?

I’ve never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same.’ ‘But the Magdalen?’ ‘Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered.

It would be a sin to help you destroy yourself.