Leo Tolstoy

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

Life did not stop, and one had to live.

Every heart has its own skeletons.

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.

I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy.

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

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures.

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

There is no one who does not exaggerate!

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

The worst sin… is… to be indifferent.