Leo Tolstoy

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

Human science fragments everything in order to understand it, kills everything in order to examine it.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

The best stories don’t come from ‘good vs. bad’ but ‘good vs. good.’

Life did not stop, and one had to live.

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

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

What could we accomplish if we knew we could not fail?

A country-bred man can always learn to get on with city people, but a town-bred fellah never gets the real hang of the country. You can put city polish on a man, but by golly, it seems you can’t ever rub it off him.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

The way to be immortal (I mean not to die at all) is to have me for your heir. I recommend you to put me in your will and you will see that (as long as I live at least) you will never even catch cold.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Images also help me find and realise ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people

A lucky person gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.

Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.

Love has features which pierce all hearts, he wears a bandage which conceals the faults of those beloved. He has wings, he comes quickly and flies away the same.

Already know you that which you need.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.