Leo Tolstoy

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.

It’s hard to love a woman and do anything.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

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.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

Courtesy Life be not so short but that there is always time for courtesy.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

All I want to do is change the world.

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.

Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potentiality and a contribution of some kind to one’s world.

All successful men have agreed in one thing – they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

Understanding is a two-way street.

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.