But 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 โ a power of which he felt himself entirely destitute โ 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 โ the aspiration which makes a man choose one out of all the innumerable paths of life that present themselves, and desire that alone.
Leo TolstoyIf we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed.
Leo TolstoyKonstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw.
Leo TolstoyThe idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination, may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to creation.
Leo TolstoyIn historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.
Leo Tolstoy