Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy; 9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 August 1828
CountryRussian Federation
loves might wish
If one loves, one loves the whole person as he or she is, and not as one might wish them to be.
church knowledge teachings
Church teachings are but fiction. I have knowledge of their inanity.
bear sends strength
He sends a cross, but He also sends the strength to bear it.
absurd born deny fable fall god redeem regarding
It is true, I deny the incomprehensible Trinity, and the fable regarding the fall of man, which is absurd in our day. It is true, I deny the sacrilegious story of a God born of a virgin to redeem the race.
dies matter peasant performs religion rituals true
A peasant dies calmly because he is not a Christian. He performs the rituals as a matter of course, but his true religion is different. His religion is nature, with which he has lived.
problem
Just when the question of how to live had become clearer to him, a new insoluble problem presented itself - Death.
hate purpose world
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?
fairytale knows
… for nightinggales - we know - can’t live on fairytales.
dark night glowing
Her face was brilliant and glowing; but this glow was not one of brightness; it suggested the fearful glow of a conflagration in the midst of a dark night.
lying mean deceit
We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?
hateful spirit miserable
I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer; "but can you understand that everything has become hateful, loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You can't imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything." "Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly, smiling. "The most utterly loathsome and coarse; I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome.
book light evil
And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.
past unhappy felt
Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.
real self hands
She put both her hands on his shoulders and gazed at him long, with a deep look of ecstasy and yet searchingly. She scrutinized his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She compared, as she did at every interview with him, the image her fancy painted of him (incomparably finer than, and impossible in actual existence) with his real self