No list of world’s greatest novelists can be complete without the mention of Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. Generations have come and gone, each only augmenting the sheer brilliance of Tolstoy as a master of realistic fiction. His novels, ‘War and Peace’, ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich’ even today are ranked amongst the best in the world and are counted amongst the finest novels ever written. His works share a vision of human experience rooted in an appreciation of everyday life and prosaic virtues. Tolstoy’s ability to observe the smallest changes of consciousness and to record the slightest movements of the body is something not many novelists can claim to have even today in the 21st century. Literary accomplishments apart, Tolstoy attracted attention due to his new faith, which mixed pacifism with Christian anarchism and advocated living a morally and physically ascetic lifestyle. Among those influenced by Tolstoy’s social beliefs was Mahatma Gandhi, who started the non-violent movement in India and brought the country its independence from British Raj. Tolstoy’s spiritual belief, religious sentiments and literary brilliance can also be seen in his quotes that cover a vast variety of subjects and give a new perspective to life.
Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.
Leo Tolstoy
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.
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 immoral.
Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.
Leo Tolstoy
Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.
But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
Leo Tolstoy
It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.
The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness...
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.
Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.
A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.
Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.
I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that i am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible....except by getting off his back.
He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.
Leo Tolstoy
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.
There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.
Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
Leo Tolstoy
Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?
Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.
Leo Tolstoy
In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.
Leo Tolstoy
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
