2
" Townsmen generally regard agriculture as one of the lowest occupations to which man can devote himself. Yet the enormous majority of the population of the whole world is engaged in agriculture, and on it the possibility of existence for all the rest of the human race depends. In reality, the human race is made up of husbandmen. All the rest – ministers, locksmiths, professors, carpenters, artists, tailors, scientists, physicians, generals, and soldiers – are but the servants or parasites of the agriculturist. Thus agriculture, besides being the most moral, healthy, joyful, and necessary occupation, is also the highest of human activities and alone gives men true independence. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
4
" Lately, in the curious and widely diffused teaching called the Science of Sociology, it has been asserted that the relations between the members of human society have been, and are, dependent on economic conditions. But to assert this is merely to substitute for the clear and evident cause of a phenomenon one of its effects. The cause of this or that economic condition always was (and could not but be) the oppression of some men by others. Economic conditions are a result of violence, and cannot therefore be the cause of human relations. Evil men – the Cains – who loved idleness and were covetous, always attacked good men – the Abels – the tillers of the soil, and by killing them or threatening to kill them, profited by their toil. The good, gentle, and industrious people, instead of fighting their oppressors, considered it best to submit, partly because they did not wish to fight, and partly because they could not do so without interrupting their work of feeding themselves and their neighbors. On this oppression of the good by the evil, and not on any economic conditions, all existing human societies have been, and still are, based and built. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
5
" In one of his books Tolstoy remarks how often the cleverest boy is at the bottom of the class. And this really does occur. A boy of active, independent mind, who has his own problems to think out, will often find it terribly hard to keep his attention on the lessons the master wants him to learn. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
6
" Malta. She wanted to find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
7
" Under the despotic power of one man, the number of persons who come under the corrupting influence of power and live on the labor of others is limited, and consists of the despot’s close friends, assistants, servants, and flatterers, and of their helpers. The infection of depravity is focused in the court of the despot, whence it radiates in all directions.
Where power is limited, i.e. where many persons take part in it, the number of centers of infection is augmented, for everyone who shares power has his friends, helpers, servants, flatterers, and relations. Where there is universal suffrage, these centers of infection are still more diffused. Every voter becomes the object of flattery and bribery. The character of the power itself is also changed. Instead of power founded on direct violence, we get a monetary power, also founded on violence, not directly, but through a complicated transmission. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
8
" Nor is it given to any man to know whether, when evening comes, he will need boots for his body or slippers for his corpse. "
― Leo Tolstoy , The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More
The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, Memoirs, Letters & Essays on Art, Religion and Politics: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, ... and Stories for Children and Many More