Leo Tolstoy

“ How so novel and difficult might be that which he intended to do, he knew that it was the only life possible to him now, and that, however easy it might be for him to return to his old mode of life, he knew that that was death, not life. This temptation of the day before was similar to that of a man who, after a night’s sound sleep, feels like taking his ease on the soft mattress for a while, although he knows that it is time to be up and away on an important affair.
* * * * Nekhludoff would have left the same evening but for his promise to Mariette to visit her at the theatre. ”

“ He could recall no wrong act, but he remembered what was worse than a wrong act—­there were the bad thoughts in which all bad acts have their origin. Bad acts may not be repeated; one may repent of them, while bad thoughts give birth to bad acts.
A bad act only smooths the way to other bad acts, while bad thoughts irresistibly lead toward them.
Recalling his thoughts of the day before, Nekhludoff wondered how he could have believed them. ”

“ Nekhludoff recalled his relations with the wife of the district commander, and a flood of shameful recollections came upon him. “There is a disgusting bestiality in man,” he thought; “but when it is in a primitive state, one looks down upon and despises it, whether he is carried away with or withstands it. But when this same bestiality hides itself under a so-called aesthetic, poetic cover, and demands to be worshiped, then, deifying the beast, one gives himself up to it, without distinguishing between the good and the bad. ”