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
children struggle law
Where did I get it from? Was it by reason that I attained to the knowledge that I must love my neighbour and not throttle him? They told me so when I was a child, and I gladly believed it, because they told me what was already in my soul. But who discovered it? Not reason! Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
struggle forgive-me feelings
God forgive me everything!’ she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling...
struggle past men
She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments.
struggle rain mean
The struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain.
growing-up struggle men
A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of born freethinker has been appearing, who’ve never even heard that there have been laws of morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative ideas about everything, that is savages.
accept admit delighted ease explaining fabric including oblige problems proudly seldom simplest taught truth
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of thegreatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and mostobvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsityof conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues,which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven,thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
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.
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.
beautiful beauty hear illusion strange suppose thoughts wise woman
What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness! A beautiful woman utters absurdities: we listen, and we hear not the absurdities but wise thoughts
absolute attractive believe body both citizen easily englishman forgets frenchman himself invented italian knows men mind personally regards repulsive russian science since state stronger truth worst
A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth -- science -- which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.
given increase less people poverty work
The more is given the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase
church convinced crafty evil gross practice teaching theory witchcraft
I am convinced that the teaching of the church is in theory a crafty and evil lie, and in practice a concoction of gross superstition and witchcraft
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.
bad evil good granted men power precisely present rule saying taken time
In saying that without the power of the state, evil men would rule over the good. It is taken for granted that the good are precisely those who at the present time have power, and the bad the same who are no subjugated.