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Leo Tolstoy -
Anna Karenina (1877)
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Woman, you see, is an object of such a kind that study it as much as you will, it is always quite new.
Leo Tolstoy
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The role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the role of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous.
Leo Tolstoy
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My principal sin is doubt. I doubt everything, and am in doubt most of the time.
Leo Tolstoy
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Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand.
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There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.
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He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly
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Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
Leo Tolstoy
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No one is satisfied with his position, but every one is satisfied with his wit
Leo Tolstoy
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Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?
Leo Tolstoy
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Some mathematician, I believe, has said that true pleasure lies not in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it.
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He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women.
Leo Tolstoy
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When you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.
Leo Tolstoy
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Excuse me' he added, taking the opera glasses out of her hands and looking over her bare shoulder at the row of boxes opposite, 'i'm afraid i'm becoming ridiculous
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Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.
Leo Tolstoy
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One can insult an honest man or an honest woman, but to tell a thief that he is a thief is merely 'The establishing of a fact.'
Leo Tolstoy
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The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it was terrible but true
Leo Tolstoy
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There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.
Leo Tolstoy
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The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served as little as possible... and to serve others as much as possible.
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Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death.
Leo Tolstoy
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These joys were so trifling as to be as imperceptible as grains of gold among the sand, and in moments of depression she saw nothing but the sand; yet there were brighter moments when she felt nothing but joy, saw nothing but the gold.
Leo Tolstoy
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He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.
Leo Tolstoy
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My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.'
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Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.
Leo Tolstoy
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Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.
Leo Tolstoy
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If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more, he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her.
No; how so? she replied. He's seen a great deal, anyway; he's cultured?
It's an utterly different culture—their culture. He's cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures.
Leo Tolstoy
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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Leo Tolstoy
Creative Commons
Born:
September 9, 1828
Died:
November 20, 1910
(aged 82)
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