Leo Tolstoy

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

Sometimes she did not know what she feared, what she desired: whether she feared or desired what had been or what would be, and precisely what she desired, she did not know.

They’ve got no idea what happiness is, they don’t know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us–there is no life.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. – Vronksy (Anna Karenina)

Love those you hate you.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

Hasty resolutions are of the nature of vows, and to be equally avoided

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -a hundred million years -and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Logic is like the sword – those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds – not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but – a hatred of all injury.

Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy — so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little, and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not keep their suspicions in smother.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself.

One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Your path will unfold as you walk it, step by step, each one a choice. Be mindful of where you put your feet; sometimes you will step on something sharp. This is a lesson; pay attention. Sometimes you will walk on soft green grass and you will stop and stay awhile. Enjoy those moments. Keep your eyes and heart on your destination and discover your way, one step at a time.

No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.