Google
|
The quotations are arranged by author name.
Current counts: Authors: 8,146. Quotations: 38,970
Select the first character of the author's last name that you want to look at:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
|
| Leo Tolstoy
"Oh, why didn't I die? It would have been better!" she said, and tears flowed silently down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile so as not to hurt him. A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction. A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul. After all his former doubts, he now felt something he had never before experienced – the certainty that love is invincible. All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do. And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people. Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen. Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. But the peasants – how do the peasants die? Crude, immoral, vulgar and senseless. Error is the force that welds men together; truth is communicated to men only by deeds of truth. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Faith is the force of life.Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live. Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. 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. He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style. Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them. Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. I see a man who has serious intentions, that's Levin; and I see a peacock, like this featherhead, who's only amusing himself. I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back. If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living. If so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love. If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state. If you want to be happy, be. In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Levin got up and escorted Kitty to the door. In their conversation everything had been said; it had been said that she loved him, and that she would tell her father and mother that he would come tomorrow morning. Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired. Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. Music is the shorthand of emotion. Nietzche was stupid and abnormal. Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal. Not our location is important, but the direction in which we move. One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love. One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken. Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible. She had wit, she had grace, she had beauty; But above all, she had truth. The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God. The happiness of men consists in life. and life is in labor. The hero of my tale – whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful – is Truth. The highest Petersburg society is essentially one: in it everyone knows everyone else, everyone even visits everyone else. The Kingdom of God is within you.. and all beings. The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits. The means to gain happiness is to throw out from oneself like a spider in all directions an adhesive web of love, and to catch in it all that comes. The more that is given the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase. The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom. The poet takes the best things out of his life and puts them into his work. Hence his work is beautiful and his life bad. The simplest and shortest ethical precept is to be served by others as little as possible, and to serve others as much as possible. The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people. There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. There is only one time that is important – NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time that we have any power. To get rid of an enemy one must love him. To Konstantin, the peasant was simply the chief partner in their common labor. To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it. To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business. True life is lived when tiny changes occur. True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. art transmits these truths from the region of perception. Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it. We lost because we told ourselves we lost. What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. Whatever happens to be in style. Which is worse? the wolf who cries before eating the lamb or the wolf who does not. Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible. Woman is more impressionable than man. Therefore in the Golden age they were better than men. Now they are worse. You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work ... if you love your work, you will find your reward in that. |
|
Sports Quotations.
Show Business Quotations.
|