The idea, shared by many, that life is a vale of tears, is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment. Leo Tolstoy More Quotes by Leo Tolstoy More Quotes From Leo Tolstoy One must do one of two tings: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one's rights in it;or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as i do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied. Leo Tolstoy rights two order With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better. Leo Tolstoy wells home I looked more widely around me, I studied the lives of the masses of humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions, had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live and to die. All these people were well acquainted with the meaning of life and death, quietly labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw in all this, not a vain, but a good thing. Leo Tolstoy courage life two The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery. Leo Tolstoy teaching practice lying These loaves, pigeons, and two little boys seemed unearthly. It all happened at the same time: a little boy ran over to a pigeon, glancing over at Levin with a smile; the pigeon flapped its wings and fluttered, gleaming in the sunshine among the snowdust quivering in the air, while the smell of freshly baked bread was wafted out of a little window as the loaves were put out. All this together was so extraordinarily wonderful that Levin burst out laughing and crying for joy. Leo Tolstoy sunshine air boys Never did Christ utter a single word attesting to a personal resurrection and a life beyond the grave. Leo Tolstoy immortality resurrection christ The chief cause of unhappiness in married life is that people think that marriage is sex attraction, which takes the form of promises and hopes and happiness - a view supported by public opinion and by literature. But marriage cannot cause happiness. Instead, it is always torture, which man has to pay for satisfying his sex urge. Leo Tolstoy marriage men sex Why does an apple fall when it is ripe? Is it brought down by the force of gravity? Is it because its stalk withers? Because it is dried by the sun, because it grows too heavy, or because the boy standing under the tree wants to eat it? None of these is the cause.... Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own freewill is in the historical sense not free at all but is bound up with the whole course of history and preordained from all eternity. Leo Tolstoy apples boys fall Mathematics is the queen of disciplines.... it will drive the nonsense out of your head! Leo Tolstoy nonsense discipline queens The magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce. Leo Tolstoy sauce blood looks Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all. Leo Tolstoy anxiety preparation taken If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer. Leo Tolstoy play writing people I say that the God who created the world in six days and who sent His son, and also his son himself, are not God, but that God is the one existing, incomparable good, the beginning of everything. Leo Tolstoy god world son He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women. Leo Tolstoy beautiful love believe They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life. Leo Tolstoy knows happiness ideas Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired. Leo Tolstoy accord our-actions mystery Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance. Leo Tolstoy jazz music men In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning. Leo Tolstoy grease flattery wheels It is this law of love and its recognition as a rule of conduct in all our relations with friends, enemies and offenders which must inevitably bring about the complete transformation of the existing order of things, Leo Tolstoy christian love order Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. ~The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy laughter real sleep
