/author/Lev%20Tolstoy

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Alphonse Karr put it very well before the war with Prussia: 'You consider war to be inevitable? Very good. Let everyone who advocates war be enrolled in a special regiment of advance guards, for the front of every assault, of every attack, to lead them all.

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He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.

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He suddenly felt that the very thing that was the source of his sufferings had become the source of his spiritual joy; that what had seemed insoluble while he was judging, blaming and hating had become clear and simple when he forgave and loved.

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One may save anyone who does not want to be ruined; but if the whole nature is so corrupt, so depraved, that ruin itself seems to her salvation, what's to be done?

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Upon meeting, you're judged by your clothes, upon parting, by your wit.

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In what way are schools going to help the [poor] people to improve their material position? You say schools, education, will give them fresh needs. So much the worse, since they won't be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I could never make out.

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Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.

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No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.

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He walked along, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking.

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I and millions of men, men who lived ages ago and men living now - peasants, the poor in spirit and the learned who have thought and written about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing - we are all agreed about this one thing: what we must live for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm, incontestable clear knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be explained by reason - it is outside it, and has no causes and can have no effects.

10 quotes by Lev Tolstoy