1,507 Quotes by Leo Tolstoy



  • Author Leo Tolstoy
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    It was awkward for her to admit even secretly to herself that she had fallen in love with a man who would possibly never love her in return, but she consoled herself with the thought that no one would ever know, and she would bear no blame for this love, as long as it remained unspoken, even if it was her first and last love, and it went on for a lifetime.

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  • Author Leo Tolstoy
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    But Nikolay was brimming with such innocent good humour that now and then even the husband fell prey to his exuberance. Towards the end of the evening, however, as the wife's face grew redder and livelier, the husband's grew steadily paler and sadder. It was as if they had been issued with a limited amount of vivacity between them, and as the wife's share of it rose, the husband's dwindled away.

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  • Author Leo Tolstoy
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    But these were essentially the accoutrements that appeal to all people who are not actually rich but who want to look rich, though all they manage to do is look like each other: damasks, ebony, plants, rugs and bronzes, anything dark and gleaming-everything that all people of a certain class affect so as to be like all other people of a certain class. And his arrangements looked so much like everyone else's that they were unremarkable, though he saw them as something truly distinctive.

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  • Author Leo Tolstoy
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    The memory of all that had happened to her after her illness: reconciliation with her husband, the break-up, the news of Vronsky's wound, his appearance, the preparation for the divorce, the departure from her husband's house, the leavetaking from her son - all this seemed to her a feverish dream from which she had awakened abroad, alone with Vronsky.

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