'I understood that it was leading to what was considered good among us, and to nothing else. Everywhere in ancient times, in Rome and Greece, and in our time in China and Japan, the same idea was expressed: that in reality wisdom is not that which comes out of books, but that which is drawn from life itself.'Leo Tolstoy
'And out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.'Leo Tolstoy
'That one's life should be nothing but a perpetual struggle against death, which, in the end, would certainly be victorious, seemed to me as stupid a piece of work as to construct a house for the purpose of its being destroyed by you, who are at the same time the builder and the destroyer.'Leo Tolstoy
'I found that for people of our circle there were four means of salvation from this terrible situation: ignorance, epicurianism, strength and energy of life, and suicide.'Leo Tolstoy
'The clearer my perception became that it was impossible to live, the more did life itself appear to me as an evil and an unreasonable thing.'Leo Tolstoy
'The truth was that life was meaningless. It was as if I had just returned from a trance, and instead of the previous two collections of material objects and teaching by oral tradition, I found before me only a skeleton with a broken skull, and a lot of flesh and blood, but unorganised.'Leo Tolstoy
'The ordinary conditions of life, without which one can do no work, are the best.'Leo Tolstoy
'Man is created for happiness, and he who is completely happy has the right to say to himself: I am fulfilling the will of God.'Leo Tolstoy
'I grasped the truth that the demand for a meaning to life is the most imperious demand of all those that a man makes upon life.'Leo Tolstoy
'What will come of what I am doing now, and may do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why does anything exist and why do I exist? Because there is a life that does not die.'Leo Tolstoy