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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“I'll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul's holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I'll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I'll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray--but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!”

PeopleWayMindMaySoulReasonWholeHappensSpeakMy OwnWifeFailingMinutesRegretWallPrayingHolyAngryMy WifeArguingWhole LifeMy SoulReason WhyMeaninglessI Pray
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.”

Energy
Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
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“…the majority of men do not think in order to know the truth, but in order to assure themselves that the life which they lead, and which is agreeable and habitual to them, is the one which coincides with the truth.”

ThinkingKnowsMenOrderMajorityHabitual
Book:THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU (One of the Most Influential Books on Nonviolent Resistance, Christianity & Inner Fate): What It Means To Be A True Christian At Heart – Crucial Book for Understanding Tolstoyan, Nonviolent Resistance and Christian Anarchist Movements
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“We walked to meet each other up at the time of our love and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions, and there's no altering that.”

Has BeensDifferentOur LoveDriftingDifferent Directions
Book:The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, The Death of Ivan Ilych, A Confession, The Cossacks, Correspondences with Gandhi, The Kreutzer Sonata, Fables and Stories for Childrenand Many More
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“They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and erat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.”

IfsShouldLongSaidSufferingDealsPathTakenImagineMinutesLet MeSakeSomething NewMisfortunesPrisonerImagine ThatTornHabitual
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“He could not be mistaken. There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she. It was Kitty.”

WorldEyeCreaturesMeaning Of LifeMistakenBrightnessKitties
Book:Anna Karenina (The Illustrated Edition): 40 original pictures from the first book with illustrations in 1913
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“Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.”

PeopleDreamRealityPastMemoriesPleasureImpressionPoeticLaughedRejoiceOld People
Book:War and Peace: Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
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“So you see,' said Stepan Arkadyich, 'you're a very wholesome man. That is your virtue and your defect. You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to be made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen. So you despise the activity of public service because you want things always to correspond to their aim, and that doesn't happen. You also want the activity of the individual man always to have an aim, that love and family life always be one. And that doesn't happen. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

MenWantMadeSaidCharacterLightHappensIndividualVirtueActivityAimVarietyCharmShadeDespiseDefectsFamily LifePublic ServiceBeauty Of LifeLove And Family
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.”

IfsMenLooksHeartMomentsFeltFlowerBrokenDifficultyStrongerBoundsSpiteThat MomentTornRuinedRecognizingHis LoveFadedNo LoveLove For Her
Book:Anna Karenina (English German bilingual Edition illustrated): Anna Karenina (Englisch Deutsch zweisprachige Ausgabe illustriert)
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“But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves. Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive others.”

PeopleIfsMenSaidStillsSeemsHappensLyingLove YouStrangeOughtDiscoveryExtraordinaryBoundsWhy NotDeceivingBangsSnapsFiringCannonsPortents
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.”

MenPassionHabitGoodnessEvery ManImpulse
Book:WAR AND PEACE Complete Edition – All 15 Books in One Volume (World Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of Anna Karenina & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including the Biography & Memoirs of the Author)
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“The Kingdom of God is Within You.”

JesusChristJesus ChristKingdomsWithin YouKingdom Of GodKingdom Of HeavenGod Within UsChariotsGnosticismLike YourselfGnosisChrist ConsciousnessOrthodox ChurchChariots Of FireDifficult Subjects
Book:The Non-Fiction of Leo Tolstoy: (Includes A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, A Letter to a Hindu, Youth, Tolstoy on Shakespeare, What to Do)
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“A wound in the soul, coming from the rending of the spiritual body, strange as it may seem, gradually closes like a physical wound. And once a deep wound heals over and the edges seem to have knit, a wound in the soul, like a physical wound, can be healed only by the force of life pushing up from inside. This was the way Natasha's wound healed. She thought her life was over. But suddenly her love for her mother showed her that the essence of life - love - was still alive in her. Love awoke, and life awoke.”

WayMayStillsSoulBodySeemsSpiritualMotherForceAliveStrangeEssenceEdgesWoundsHealLove LifePushingHealedEssence Of LifeLove For HerNatashaDeep Wounds
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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