When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it?
("War and Peace")
More Quotes from Leo Tolstoy:
Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east to the west slaying their fellows.Leo Tolstoy
But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass.
Leo Tolstoy
You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.
Leo Tolstoy
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of thegreatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and mostobvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsityof conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues,which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven,thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
Leo Tolstoy
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
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