Leo Tolstoy

“ Sleep in all its phases is a wonderful thing: the pieparation, falling asleep, and sleep itself.-As soon as I lay down I thought, "What a delight to wrap oneself up warmly and immediately forget oneself in sleep." ”

“ All the pleasures of the body are destroyed by consciousness. One should not be conscious; but I was conscious that I was conscious, and I continued to be conscious, and I couldn't go to sleep. How annoying! Why did God give us consciousness when it only interferes with life?-Because moral pleasures on the contrary are felt more deeply when they are conscious. ”

“ Practice is not necessary for the exercise of virtue-the practice is life itself. Cold is the absence of heat. Darkness is the absence of light, evil the absence of good.-Why does man love heat, light, and good? ”

“ Surely virtue does not consist of correcting the weaknesses which harm you in life. It would seem in such a case that virtue is self-denial.-But that is not true. Virtue brings happiness because happiness brings virtue.-Whenever I write candidly in my diary I do not experience the least vexation toward myself for my weaknesses ”

“ Good is positive and not negative. And it is sufficient that good is positive and evil negative for the very reason that evil can be destroyed but good cannot. Good is always in our soul and the soul is good ”

“ For example, a droshki driver cannot shout at a carriage; a singleton-even an elegant one can hardly shout at a four-in-hand; but then, everything depends on the nature of the individual circumstances and, most important, on the personality of the driver and the direction in which he is going. I once saw in Tula a striking example of the influence that one man can have on others through sheer audacity. ”

“ The longer the conversation continues, the farther apart they draw, until a t last each one sees that he is no longer conversing, but is preaching with a freedom which he permits only to himself; that he is making a spectacle of himself, and that the other is not listening to him, but is doing the same thing. ”

“ Light and heat and the law of gravitation prove this to us. This is in the physical world. I n the moral world we see good, we see its rays, we see that there is a law of gravitation of the good towards something higher, and that its source is God.
Remove the coarse crust from a diamond and it will sparkle; throw off the envelope of weaknesses and you will find virtue. But is it possible that it is only these trifles, these little weaknesses which you write down in the journal that prevent you from being good? Are there not greater passions? ”

“ Why is it always repugnant to me to come home, no matter where or how I live repugnant to see the same Prov in the same place, the same candle, the same spots on the wallpaper, the same pictures? The whole thing is positively dismal.
I am particularly tired of the wallpaper and the pictures because they have pretensions to variety, and after looking at them for two days in a row they are worse than a blank wall. This unpleasant sensation upon coming home is due, I suppose, to the fact that man is not meant to lead a bachelor's life at the age of twenty-two. ”

“ I wish to be cool, but then this coolness seems overdone and I become too affable. With people whom you love honorably, the thought that they may think you love them dishonorably unnerves you and you become short and brusque. ”

“ The consciousness of the body goes to sleep last and seldom completely.-Animals do not have this gradation of consciousness, nor do people when they are in such a state that they lose all consciousness-after a strong shock or when intoxicated.-The consciousness of being asleep awakens one immediately. The recollection of the time which we spend asleep does not proceed from the same source as do the recollections of real life-i.e., from memory, the ability to reproduce our impressions-but from the ability to group impressions. ”

“ In conversation as in egg-rolling, there are little sloops that roll along noisily and not very far; there are sharp-ended ones that wander off heaven knows where. But, with the exception of the little sloops, there are no two eggs that would roll in the same direction. Each has its little end. ”

“ A hunter has something to daydream about, and he forgets to hurl a well-timed curse at the driver who does not keep to the right-hand side. With coachmen, as with everyone else, the one who shouts first and with the greatest assurance is right. ”

“ The Russian has an amazing ability to find the incisive epithet for a person he has never seen before, and not only for an individual, but for a whole social class. A member of the lower middle class is a "catdealer", because, it is said, they trade in catskins; a footman is a "lapper," a "lickspittle"; a peasant is "Kurick"-why, I don't know; a driver is a "waggon-eater," etc.,-it is impossible to list them all. ”

“ Then my body went to sleep too.-A dream is made up of the first and last impressions.
Sleep is a condition in which man completely loses consciousness; but since a man goes to sleep by degrees, he also loses consciousness by degrees. Consciousness is what is called the soul; but the soul is regarded as something simple, while there are as many conscious- nesses as there are separate parts of a human being. ”

“ As an employment conversation is the stupidest of inventions.-It is not from a deficiency of intelligence but from egotism that con- versation fails. Everyone wishes to talk about himself or about that which interests him; however, if one speaks and another listens, the result is not a conversation but a lecture. And if two people come together who are interested in the same thing, then a third person is enough to spoil the whole business: he interferes, you must try to give him a share too-and your conversation has gone to the devil. ”

“ Opposite him the policeman walked up and down on the platform in front of his sentry-box and, using the end of his halberd, adjusted the plank which was laid across the puddles near his balcony.-Suddenly he seemed to resent the fact that the carriage was standing there, or else he began to envy the driver who was warming himself with such pleasure, or perhaps he merely wished to start a conversation. He walked the length of his little balcony, peered into the side street, and then thumped with his halberd on the plank: "Hey you, where are you stopping? You're blocking the road." ”

“ I said my prayers and lay down to sleep. In the evening I pray better than in the morning; I understand better what I am saying and feeling. In the evening I do not fear myself, in the morning I do-there is much before me. ”

“ But that is scarcely enough; in society the head too should be occupied, or at the very least should be so employed as to allow silence equally with conversation. Such an employment has been invented: cards. People of the older generation complain that "nowadays there is no conversation." I do not know how people were in the old days (it seems to me that people have always been the same) , but conversation there can never be. ”

“ In the moment of awakening we unite all the impressions which we received while going to sleep and while asleep (man almost never sleeps completely) under the influence of the impression which caused us to awaken. This process is the same as falling asleep: it proceeds by degrees, starting with the lowest faculty and ending with the highest. 'This takes place so rapidly that it is impossible to detect it, and being accustomed to consistency and to the form of time in which life manifests itself, we accept this aggregate of impressiolls as a recollection of time passed in sleep. ”

“ If there were no evil the good would develop freely. The comparison with the farmer is not valid; he has to sow and plow, but in the soul the good is already sown. The artist must practice and he will master his art, if he does not conform to negative rules, but he must [be free?] ”

“ To set up a goal for oneself is impossible.-I have tried this many times and it does not work. One should not invent a goal, but find such a one as harmonizes with man's inclinations, which existed previously, but of which one has just become aware. ”

“ Because they are natural. There is a cause of heat, light, and good- the sun, God; but there is no cold or dark sun, no evil God. We see light and rays of light, we seek the cause and say that there is a sun. ”

“ Prov might be offended and he is a man of dignity.
In the evening I usually write in my diary, my Franklin journal, and my daily accounts.
Today I didn't spend anything because I haven't even a half-kopek piece left, so there is nothing to write in the account book. The diary and the journal are another matter. I ought to write in them, but it is late; 1'11 put it off until tomorrow.
I have often heard the words, "He's a frivolous person; he lives without a goal." ”

“ If you wish to verify what you yourself experience, recall your thoughts and images at the time of going to sleep and of waking up, and if anyone watched you while you were sleeping and can tell you all the circumstances which could have produced an effect on you, you will understand why you dreamed what you did and not something else. ”

“ I am writing a history of yesterday not because yesterday was extraordinary in any way, for it might rather be called ordinary, but because I have long wished to trace the intimate side of life through an entire day. Only God knows how many diverse and diverting impressions, together with the thoughts awakened by them, occur in a single day. ”

“ If you have spoken heatedly and then, because of weariness and boredom, you cannot muster a reply, the last impression lingers and people say, "How dull he is..." But when people play cards this does not happen. One may remain silent without incurring censure. ”

“ One of the principal accepted means for its attainment is the diary and Franklin journal. Every day I confess in my diary everything that I have done badly. I have my weaknesses written out in columns in the journal-laziness, mendacity, gluttony, indecision, the desire to show off, sensuality, lack of jiertk, etc.,- all such petty addictions. I post my transgressions from the diary to the journal by placing little crosses in the columns. ”

“ What a disagreeable sensation to uncover yourself in the dark. I t always seems as if some one or something is clutching me or something cold or hot is touching my bare leg. I covered myself up quickly, tucked the blanket in under me on all sides, hid my head and began to go to sleep ”

“ If the vehicles are going in the same direction the disputes last longer. The one who was to blame attempts to drive the other away or to leave him behind, and the latter sometimes succeeds in proving to him the wrongness of his action, and gains the upper hand; however, when they are driving on the same side the odds are in favor of the one whose horses are more mettlesome.
All of these relationships correspond very closely to the general relationships in life. ”

“ They will greet you and see you off as if you were a member of the family, and you translate their complaisance-whose source is your fifty-kopek piece-as follows: "Everyone here loves you and honors you, therefore we try, in pleasing the masters, to please you." Perhaps it is only the footman who loves and honors you, but all the same it is pleasant. ”

“ That he would not tolerate, even though here he didn't need to fear the wag who would say, "Feeding time, eh?" ...Here was proof that Dmitri acted more from a consciousness of his duty than from vanity.
I thought much more about the many and varied relations of drivers among themselves, of their intelligence, resourcefulness, and pride. I suppose that a t large gatherings those who have been in- volved in collisions recognize one another and pass from hostile to peaceable relations. Everything in the world is interesting, especially the relationships which exist in classes other than our own. ”

“ These people are accustomed to draw conclusions from dreams according to the principles of fortune-telling; they have set up a certain form to which everything is reduced. They supply what is lacking from their imagination and omit everything that does not fit into this form. ”

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“ There are also conversations between people who are interested in the same thing, and where no one disturbs them, but such cases are even worse. Each speaks of the same thing from his own viewpoint, transposing everything to his own key, and measuring everything with his own yardstick. ”

“ It seems to me either that my hands are very dirty, or that I am sitting awkwardly, or else a pimple on my cheek-the one facing her-torments me. Yet she is in no way to blame for this: I am always ill a t ease with people whom I either do not like or like very much. ”