What are wanted ...are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes... but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth ...that for our life one law is valid - the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind.
Leo TolstoyYou've said nothing, of course, and I ask nothing," he was saying; "but you know that friendship's not what I want: that there's only one happiness in life for me, that word that you dislike so...yes, love!
Leo TolstoyAs often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.
Leo TolstoyReason unites us, not only with our contemporaries, but with men who lived two thousand years before us, and with those who will live after us.
Leo TolstoyAnd that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, to-day becomes the general opinion of the majority.
Leo TolstoySo you see,' said Stepan Arkadyich, 'you're a very wholesome man. That is your virtue and your defect. You have a wholesome character, and you want all of life to be made up of wholesome phenomena, but that doesn't happen. So you despise the activity of public service because you want things always to correspond to their aim, and that doesn't happen. You also want the activity of the individual man always to have an aim, that love and family life always be one. And that doesn't happen. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.
Leo Tolstoy