Home > Work > The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories
1 " music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. I become confounded with his soul, and with him I pass from one condition to another. But why that? I know nothing about it? But he who wrote Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata' knew well why he found himself in a certain condition. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories
2 " Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. "
3 " I would not take a young man to a lock-hospital to knock the hankering after women out of him, but into my soul to see the devils that were rending it. "
4 " For a long time afterwards, in prison, when moral change took place in me, I thought of that moment, recalled what I could of it, and considered it. I remembered for an instant, before the action I had a terrible consciousness I was killing a defenseless woman, my wife! "
5 " Love or do not love, but do not break a home.How can ordinary love sanctify marriage?Pure girl only wants children. "
6 " Fury too, has its laws. "
7 " For the attainment of blessedness, a law has been given to humanity which it should fulfill. The law is that of the union of mankind. "
8 " When a human being does not live humanly, it is worse for him or her than for the beast. Love children humanly. Our whole life was continually poisoned by fear on the children`s account - fear of their real or imaginary illness. "
9 " All this mental illness of our occurred simply bc we lived immorally. We suffered from our immoral life, to smother our suffering we committed various abnormal acts. I disliked him, bc I understood that he was a dirty adulterer. "
