Leo Tolstoy · 2356 pages
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“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“We are asleep until we fall in Love!”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Everything I know, I know because of love.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Because of the self-confidence with which he had spoken, no one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“How can one be well...when one suffers morally?”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Life did not stop, and one had to live.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Kings are the slaves of history.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“Here I am alive, and it's not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”
― Leo Tolstoy, quote from الحرب والسلم [War and Peace]
“I come to you for help. We've been silent far too long. Many of you have turned your backs on Arman. Many never bothered to know Him at all. But Arman is the One God. He created Er'Rets and everything in it. He gave each of you life and purpose. He loves all of you as His own sons and daughters.
To defeat Darkness, we must unite our faith. We must worship the One God, Arman. We must call out to Him for mercy. Though He hears my prayer now, my voice alone is not strong enough. I am only one man. But together, we are mighty. I ask you to join with me now. Worship Him.”
― Jill Williamson, quote from From Darkness Won
“The other day, one of the big shots was trying to say ‘Nice shoes!’ and he accidentally told a government minister that his face looked like a butt wart. Not good.”
― Carl Hiaasen, quote from Chomp
“There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical...It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that is the foundation of all poetry...the most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.”
― G.K. Chesterton, quote from The Man Who Was Thursday
“In England, people had been loudly proclaiming the death of the guitar and the birth of the synthesizer, but Sonic Youth and other American guitar bands started to create a buzz.”
― Kim Gordon, quote from Girl in a Band
“Even a year later, Bush remarked to a friend, with uncharacteristic bluntness: “I wouldn’t care if I never see Richard Nixon again.”
― Richard Ben Cramer, quote from What It Takes: The Way to the White House
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