I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible.
Leo TolstoyChristianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment, its wars
Leo TolstoyThere can be only one permanent revolution- a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.
Leo TolstoyHappiness consists in always aspiring perfection, the pause in any level in perfection is the pause of happiness
Leo TolstoyBut the older he grew and the more intimately he came to know his brother, the oftener the thought occurred to him that the power of working for the general welfare – a power of which he felt himself entirely destitute – was not a virtue but rather a lack of something: not a lack of kindly honesty and noble desires and tastes, but a lack of the power of living, of what is called heart – the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life that present themselves, and desire that alone.
Leo Tolstoy