Leo Tolstoy

Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand. (Anna Karenina)

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?

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.

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.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.

Everything depends on upbringing.

It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

Trees are among the most useful things grown.

Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all the deadly sins.

Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success in some service for which they are naturally fitted.

There are two types of speakers, those that are nervous and those that are liars.

Nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to avoid something that fundamentally attracts you.

I’m doing it because I choose it. And if it’s not working, I can make a change.

The worst things in history have happened when people stop thinking for themselves and listen to other people and, even worse, start following other people. That’s what gives rise to dictators.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

Individualism is what makes cooperation worth living.

Come to me, wild and untamed. Bring the oceans on your lips, the mountains on your spine; I want to explore all the places you have ever called home. Let me pluck each petal from the gardens you’ve grown, overcrowded seedlings pushing up through your bones. Come to me dipped in the stars, come to me wearing all your scars. I want to show you just how beautiful you are.