If you want to be happy, be.

Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible.

Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man – and there was something...

This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer.

Next day at the review the Tsar asked Prince Andrey where he desired to serve; and Bolkonsky ruined his chances for ever in the court world by asking to be sent to the front, instead...

The true meaning of Christ’s teaching consists in the recognition of love as the supreme law of life, and therefore not admitting any exceptions.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is...

Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people–that’s in your hands.

Der Mensch, der einen wirklich künstlerischen Eindruck empfängt, hat das Gefühl, dass er das, was ihm die Kunst enthüllt, bereits kannte, aber außer Stande war, den Ausdruck dafür zu finden.

Everybody thinks of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing themselves.

Love those you hate you.

My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which...

In everything, almost in everything, I wrote I was guided by the need of collecting ideas which, linked together, would be the expression of myself, though each individual idea, expressed separately in words, loses its...

He was a passionate adherent of the new ideas and of Speransky, and the busiest purveyor of news in Petersburg, one of those men who choose their opinions like their clothes—according to the fashion—but for...

He felt that he could not turn aside from himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried to be better), but...

Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around.

The worker picked up Pakhom’s spade, dug a grave, and buried him – six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount of land a man needs.

In my considered opinion, salary is payment for goods delivered and it must conform to the law of supply and demand. If, therefore, the fixed salary is a violation of this law – as, for...

Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of this darkness he felt that the one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with...

No matter what the work you are doing, be always ready to drop it. And plan it, so as to be able to leave it.

There will be today, there will be tomorrow, there will be always, and there was yesterday, and there was the day before…

If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name...

truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

A man’s every action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds him and by his own body.

Anna read and understood, but it was unpleasant to read, that is to say, to follow the reflection of other people’s lives. She was too eager to live herself.

In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.

Men never understand what honor is, though they’re always talking about it

I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.

Respect is an invention of people who want to cover up the empty place where love should be.

Man lives consciously for himself but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of historical and social ends.

God gave the day, God gave the strength.

Perhaps it’s because I appreciate all I have so much that I don’t worry about what I haven’t got.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.

When a man sees a dying animal, horror comes over him: that which he himself is, his essence, is obviously being annihilated before his eyes–is ceasing to be. But when the dying one is a...

War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern....

The subject of history is the life of peoples and mankind.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.

These prin­ciples laid down as in variable rules: that one must pay a card sharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to...

What am I coming for?” he repeated, looking straight into her eyes. “You know that I have come to be where you are,” he said; “I can’t help it.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.Read more at

And those who only know the non-platonic love have no need to talk of tragedy. In such love there can be no sort of tragedy.

You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Loving the same man or woman all your life, why, that’s like supposing the same candle could last you all your life

To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.

The business of art lies just in this, — to make that understood and felt which, in the form of an argument, might be incomprehensible and inaccessible.

He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees...

Why are you so sad? – Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.

In order to forgive, one must have lived through what I have lived through, and may God spare her that.

We walked to meet each other up at the time of our love and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions, and there’s no altering that.