"I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible."
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Quote collection
Leo Tolstoy quotes (page 38 of 42)
824 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused."
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"The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him. And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him."
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"Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part."
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"Many families remain for years in the same place, though both husband and wife are sick of it, simply because there is neither complete division nor agreement between them."
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"Don’t you know that you are all my life to me? ...But peace I do not know, and can’t give to you. My whole being, my love...yes! I cannot think about you and about myself separately. You and I are one to me. And I do not see before us the possibility of peace either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, misfortune...or of happiness-what happiness!...Is it impossible?" Vronksy"
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"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."
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"Beautiful as seemed mama's face, it became more lovely when she smiled and seemed to enliven everything about her."
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"The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life..."
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"It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one another."
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"the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't."
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"When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, he could find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair; but when he left off questioning himself about it, it seemed as though he knew both what he was and what he was living for, acting and living resolutely and without hesitation."
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"He felt that all his hitherto dissipated and dispersed forces were gathered and directed with terrible energy towards one blissful goal."
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"If a man's aspirations towards a righteous life are serious.. .if he earnestly and sincerely seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food, because, not to mention the excitement of the passions produced by such food, it is plainly immoral, as it requires an act contrary to moral feeling, i. e., killing - and is called forth only by greed."
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"Quos vilt perdere dementat' Whome the gods wish to destroy, they first drive made (Latin)."
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"If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, could know his future life in full detail, he would have nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of humanity. If it had a programme of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in the same place."
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"I ask one thing: I ask the right to hope and suffer as I do now." Vronsky"
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"We call beauty that which supplies us with a particular pleasure."
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"Commit no act that is contrary to love."
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"Childhood candor... shall I ever find you again?"
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