Author of quotes: Leo Tolstoy

I want love for peace to cease to be a timid desire of peoples who are horrified at the sight of the disasters of war, but for it to become an unshakable demand of an honest conscience.

We live in the absurd confidence that we ourselves are the masters of our lives, that it is given to us for our enjoyment, but this is obviously absurd. After all, if we were sent here, it was by someone’s will and for something. But we decided that we live only for our own joy, and it is clear that we feel bad, just as it would feel bad for a worker who does not fulfill the will of the owner. The will of the owner is expressed in these commandments. Just fulfill these commandments, and the kingdom of God will be established on earth, and people will receive the greatest benefit that is available to them.

Forgive always, everyone, forgive an infinite number of times, because there are no people who themselves are not guilty and therefore could punish or correct.

All that terrible evil that he saw and recognized during this time and especially now, in this terrible prison, all this evil triumphed, reigned, and there was no possibility of not only defeating it, but even understanding how to defeat it.

- This way he’ll wear you all out.

They tell me: eradicate bribery. But how can we eradicate it when everyone is a bribe-taker? And the lower the rank, the more.

He occupied such an important, leading position that no matter what stupidity he said, it was taken for intelligent speech.

The general belonged to the type of military scientist who believes in reconciling liberality and humanity with his profession. But, as a naturally intelligent and kind person, he very soon felt the impossibility of such reconciliation.

Yes, Herzen said that when the Decembrists were taken out of circulation, the general level was lowered.

He despised Nekhlyudov because he allowed himself to think about the shortcomings of the existing structure and the means of correcting it, not only not word for word in the same way as he, Novodvorov, thought, but even somehow in his own way, in a princely way, that is, in -stupid.

He loved no one and treated all outstanding people as rivals.

Since his activities took place among very young people who mistook his boundless self-confidence for profundity and wisdom, the majority obeyed him, and he had great success in revolutionary circles.

Thanks to the absence in his character of moral and aesthetic qualities that give rise to doubts and hesitations, he very soon took the position of party leader in the revolutionary world that satisfied his pride.

The entire revolutionary activity of Novodvorov, despite the fact that he was able to eloquently explain it with very convincing arguments, seemed to Nekhlyudov to be based only on vanity, the desire to excel over people.