There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.
Leo TolstoyLove is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
Leo TolstoyIf there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many of his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but it more closely suited his manner of life.
Leo TolstoyWhat is reason given me for, if I am not to use it to avoid bringing unhappy beings into the world!
Leo TolstoyBut that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.
Leo Tolstoy