Leo Tolstoy · 108 pages
Rating: (2.9K votes)
“Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats, especially after struggling in the snow drift, a cold shiver ran down his back on realizing that he must really spend the night where they were.”
“In the depths of his heart Vasili Andreevich knew that it could not yet be near morning, but he was growing more and more afraid, and wished both to get to know and yet to deceive himself.”
“The thought that he might, and very probably would die that night occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful.
It did not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been not a continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of toil of which he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem particularly dreadful, because besides the masters he had served here, like Vasili Andreevich, he always felt himself dependent on the Chief Master, who had sent him into this life, and he knew that when dying he would still be in that Master's power and would not be ill-used by Him.”
“Он, как и все люди, живущие с природой и знающие нужду, был терпелив и мог спокойно ждать часы, дни даже, не испытывая ни беспокойства, ни раздражения.
(He, like all people who live with nature and know want, was patient and could wait calmly for hours, even days, without feeling either alarm or vexation)”
“We shall have to stay the night here,' he said, as if preparing to spend the night at an inn, and he proceeded to unfasten the collar-straps. The buckles came undone.
'But shan't we be frozen?' remarked Vasili Andreevich.
'Well, if we are we can't help it.' said Nikita.”
“Loose an hour and you cannot catch up in a year.”
“Whether he is better or worse off there where he awoke after his death, disappointed, or found there what he expected we shall all soon learn.”
“I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him up not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to get up but could not, tried to move his arm and could not, to move his leg and also could not, to turn his head and could not. He was surprised but not at all disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was not at all disturbed by that either.”
“Blizzard or no blizzard I start out. So business gets done. They think money making is a joke. No, take pains and rack your brains.”
“Like all those who live in touch with nature and have known want, he was patient and could wait for hours, even days without growing restless or irritable”
“Things always go quicker with two working at it.”
“The most powerful way to keep your children from being attracted by the offers of camaraderie from the wicked is to make home an attractive place to be.”
“We are all wise. The difference between persons is not in wisdom but in art. I knew, in an academical club, a person who always deferred to me; who, seeing my whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them.”
“And you… do you know what you are?”
“Stupid?”
“Beautiful,” he says, his face turning red.”
“He loved his job. What was advertising, anyway, but a knowledge of people and of which buttons to push to nudge them into opening their wallets?
It was, he often thought, an accepted, creative, even expected twist on picking those wallets. For a man who had spent the first half of his life as a thief, it was the perfect career.”
“When a place gets crowded enough to require ID’s, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.”
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