Leo Tolstoy quotes

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter 4

“Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don’t fret for what I haven’t,” said Levin, thinking of Kitty.

— Levin · Chapter 14

Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife’s loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself.

You are one of those delightful women in whose company it’s sweet to be silent as well as to talk.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter 18

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. And if you don’t love me any more, it would be better and more honest to say so.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter 24

He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

— Stepan Arkadyevitch · Chapter 11

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.

“I think ... of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.”

— Anna · Chapter 7

“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,” he said.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter VI

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here,” said the spirit of the place.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XI

But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XVI

“It all depends on the bringing up,” remarked the visitor.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XII

“From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XVIII

“All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter I

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter IV

God is the same everywhere.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XII

There is one thing, and only one thing, in which it is granted to you to be free in life, all else being beyond your power: that is to recognize and profess the truth.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.