Statements about the novel “War and Peace” and the work of Leo Tolstoy

Criticism about the work of Leo Tolstoy, reviews of contemporaries, critics of the 19th and 20th centuries.

L.N. Tolstoy is an outstanding Russian writer and the author of many works famous throughout the world.
This article presents criticism of the work of Leo Tolstoy: reviews from contemporaries and famous critics of the 19th and 20th centuries. See:
All materials on the works of Leo Tolstoy

Criticism of the work of L. N. Tolstoy, reviews from contemporaries

N. G. Chernyshevsky:

“We will not be mistaken in saying that self-observation should have extremely sharpened his powers of observation in general, accustoming him to look at people with a penetrating gaze. This quality is precious in talent, perhaps the most durable of all the rights to fame of a truly remarkable writer.

Count Tolstoy has true talent. You need to have a lot of taste to appreciate the beauty of Count Tolstoy's works; but on the other hand, a person who knows how to understand true beauty, true poetry, sees in Count Tolstoy a real artist, that is, a poet with remarkable talent.

This talent belongs to a young man, with fresh vitality, who still has a long way to go. We predict that everything that Count Tolstoy has given to our literature so far is only a guarantee of what he will accomplish later; but how rich and beautiful are these pledges!” (N. G. Chernyshevsky, article “Childhood and adolescence. War stories of Count L. N. Tolstoy,” Sovremennik magazine, 1856, No. 12)

. Whatever scene we remember, everywhere we will find either a subtle analysis of the mutual relations between the characters, or an abstract psychological treatise that retains fresh, full vitality in its abstraction, or, finally, tracing the most mysterious, unclear movements of the soul that have not reached consciousness, not completely understandable even for the person who experiences them himself, and, meanwhile, receiving their expression in words and not losing their mystery.” (D. I. Pisarev, article “Three Deaths.” The story of Count L. N. Tolstoy”, “Library for Reading”, 1859)

“That Tolstoy loves nature and depicts it with such skill, to which, it seems, no one has ever risen before, anyone who has read his works knows this. Nature is not described, but lives in our great artist. Sometimes she is even one of the characters in the story. The beauty of nature finds in Tolstoy its most sympathetic connoisseur. "(G.V. Plekhanov, article “Tolstoy and Nature” from the collection “L.N. Tolstoy in Russian Criticism”, 1952)

N.K. Gudziy:

“Tolstoy developed a great gift of observation in relation to the inner world of people as a result of constant introspection and increased control of his mental world.

Introspection became for Tolstoy the main source of his highly self-critical attitude towards both himself and his work. Striving for a truthful, sincere, often merciless assessment of his actions, Tolstoy also strove for complete truthfulness in his portrayal of people and the environment in which they live.

The gift of extreme observation. affects not only the description of a person’s mental states, but also the description of the characters’ habitual movements, gestures and physical actions in general, as well as individual features of their external appearance, behind which one can discern the features of their inner being. Usually, in his portrait characteristics, Tolstoy does not give a sequential listing of the external signs of this or that character, as, for example, Turgenev does, but highlights in his appearance, in poses, in gait, in facial expression, separate stable individual features that simultaneously clarify the external and their internal appearance. For example, Tolstoy persistently draws attention to the short, mobile sponge of Princess Bolkonskaya. at the radiant eyes of Princess Marya Bolkonskaya, her reddened face and heavy gait. at Dolokhov’s bright and insolent gaze, Anna Karenina’s light, firm gait.

The same observation that Tolstoy shows in relation to the inner world of a person, he also shows to the environment around a person, to all the details of his life. He strives to show his characters as clearly as possible surrounded by real, concrete reality in which they live and act. We see the same thing in Tolstoy’s depiction of nature, the pictures of which he draws without. romantic elation. and s. amazing vigilance. "(N.K. Gudziy, "Leo Tolstoy", 1960)

Gustave Flaubert (French writer):

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read Tolstoy’s novel*.
This is first-class stuff! What an artist and what a psychologist! The first two volumes are amazing. I happened to scream with delight while reading, and it lasted a long time. Yes, it's strong! Very much!" (letter from G. Flaubert to I. S. Turgenev, quoted from I. S. Turgenev’s letter to L. N. Tolstoy, January 12/24, 1880) * - referring to the novel “War and Peace”
by Emile Zola (French writer):

“I have the greatest admiration for Tolstoy the novelist. In addition to his literary genius, I will note his kindness and his hatred of war, which I share.” (collection “Hommage a Tolstoy”, 1901)

Theodore Dreiser (American writer):

“I started reading hard again. Tolstoy was dearest to me then, as the author of the stories “The Kreutzer Sonata” and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” I was so delighted and shocked by the vitality of the pictures that were revealed to me in them that a thought suddenly dawned on me, as if completely new to me: how wonderful it would be to become a writer. If only you could write like Tolstoy and make the whole world listen. "(from the book "Dawn", 1931)

Source

Tolstoy Quotes

Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin

I present to your attention a selection of quotes from the writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy .

Tolstoy could not remain silent , and usually spoke out sincerely and polemically.

Quotes are summarized by topic: faith and religion, life, life ethics, about yourself, the meaning of life, man, human manifestations, art and creativity, relationships, marriage and family, love, happiness, upbringing and education, knowledge, conversation and silence, truth , good and evil, nature, war, death, thought, self-development and self-improvement, authorities, patriotism, word, time, freedom, music, work.

In conclusion, quotes about Tolstoy are given.

About faith and religion

Where there is love, there is God.

The essence of any faith is that it gives life a meaning that is not destroyed by death.

Faith is the understanding of the meaning of life and the recognition of the responsibilities arising from this understanding.

Faith is knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life. If a person lives, then he believes in something. If he did not believe that one must live for something, then he would not live.

Salvation does not lie in rituals, sacraments, or in the confession of this or that faith, but in a clear understanding of the meaning of one’s life.

True religion is first of all the search for religion.

True religion is such an attitude established by a person to the infinite life around him, which connects his life with this infinity and guides his actions.

In order to live a good life, there is no need to know where you came from and what will happen in the next world.

I do not want to be a Christian, just as I did not advise and would not want there to be Brahmenists, Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, Mohammedans and others. We must all find, each in his own faith, what is common to all, and, renouncing what is exclusive to us, cling to what is common.

People live by love; self-love is the beginning of death, love for God and people is the beginning of life.

Love is nothing other than the recognition of others as myself.

Church. This whole word is the name of deception, through which some people want to rule over others.

About life

Life is an unceasing change: weakening of the carnal and strengthening, increasing of spiritual life.

Life is a transition from one form to another. The life of this world is the material for a new form.

Our life is constantly an escape from ourselves, as if remorse haunts and frightens us. As soon as a person gets to his feet, he begins to scream so as not to hear the speeches heard inside.

The world moves forward because of those who suffer.

If we assume that human life can be controlled by reason, then the possibility of life will be destroyed.

We are externally separate, but internally connected with all living beings.

Each act is nothing in comparison with the infinity of space and time, and at the same time its action is infinite in space and time.

The value of life is inversely proportional to the square of the distance to death.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot get used, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.

We have many rules, but no truth.

No uprisings, riots, unions will do one thousandth of what abstinence from at least two things can do - drinking vodka and joining the army.

How can we hope for peace and prosperity on earth if our bodies are living graves in which slaughtered animals are buried?

Everyone is making plans, and no one knows whether he will survive until the evening.

What is called civilization is the growth of humanity. Growth is necessary, you can’t talk about it whether it’s good or bad. It is there, there is life in it. Like the growth of a tree. But the bough or the forces of life growing into the bough are wrong and harmful if they absorb all the force of growth. This is with our false civilization.

By the way, quotes about life

About life ethics

Do what you have to, and whatever happens will happen.

There are no accidents in fate; man creates rather than meets his destiny.

Act as if you are alone in this world, and people will never know about your action.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door. If everyone does this, the whole street will be clean.

My whole idea is that if vicious people are connected with each other and constitute a force, then honest people need to do only the same.

To live honestly, you have to struggle, get confused, fight, quit, and always struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.

The true strength of a person is not in impulses, but in unshakable calm.

Always look for the good side in other people, not the bad.

If you don’t have the strength to burn and shed light, then at least don’t extinguish it.

When discussing the actions of other people, remember your own.

It is easier to give in than to bend others.

The battle is won by the one who is determined to win it.

Nothing weakens a person’s strength so much as the hope of finding salvation and goodness in something other than one’s own effort.

Everything comes to those who know how to wait.

Create as many activities for yourself as possible.

It is better to know a little truly good and necessary than a lot of mediocre and unnecessary things.

Look for the best person among those whom the world condemns.

A cowardly friend is worse than an enemy, because you fear an enemy, but rely on a friend.

When living with people, do not forget what you learned in solitude. In solitude, think about what you have learned from communicating with people.

A person who has stopped drinking and smoking acquires that mental clarity and calmness of view that illuminates all the phenomena of life for him from a new, true perspective.

About Me

I was lonely and unhappy living in the Caucasus. I began to think in a way that only once in a lifetime people have the strength to think... And everything that I found then will forever remain my conviction... I found a simple, old thing, I found that there is immortality, that there is love and that one must live for another, in order to be happy forever...

The conversation about the divine and faith brought me to a great, enormous thought, the implementation of which I feel capable of devoting my life to. This thought is the foundation of a new religion, corresponding to the development of humanity, the religion of Christ, but purified from faith and mystery, a practical religion that does not promise future bliss, but gives bliss on earth.

Now it’s summer and a lovely summer, and I, as usual, am overwhelmed by the joy of carnal life and forget my work. This year I struggled for a long time, but the beauty of the world defeated me. And I enjoy life and do almost nothing else.

Without my Yasnaya Polyana, I can hardly imagine Russia and my attitude towards it. Without Yasnaya Polyana, I may see more clearly the general laws necessary for my fatherland, but I will not love it to the point of passion.

I would be the unhappiest of people if I had not found a goal for my life - a common and useful goal...

A revolution happened to me, which had been preparing in me for a long time and the makings of which had always been in me. What happened to me was that the life of our circle—the rich, the learned—not only became disgusting to me, but lost all meaning. I renounced the life of our circle.

The only happy periods of my life were those when I devoted my whole life to serving people. These were: schools, mediation, famine relief and religious relief.

Some - liberals and aesthetes - consider me crazy or weak-minded like Gogol; others - revolutionaries and radicals - consider me a mystic, a talker; government people consider me a malicious revolutionary; Orthodox believe me to be the devil.

Not to mention the love for me, which is not even a trace, she doesn’t need my love for her either, she needs one thing: for people to think that I love her. This is what is terrible.

About the meaning of life

I am sure that the meaning of life for each of us is simply to grow in love.

The meaning of life is revealed in the human mind as a desire for good. Clarification of this good, a more and more precise definition of it, constitutes the main goal and work of life for all mankind.

You need to ask: not why I live, but what should I do.

I don't have everything I love. But I love everything I have.

Life, which appears to me as nothing, is nothing.

The meaninglessness of life is the only undoubted knowledge available to man.

Does my life have meaning that will not be destroyed by the inevitable death that awaits me?

It is not because people are horrified by the thought of carnal death that they are afraid that their life will not end with it, but because carnal death clearly shows them the need for true life, which they do not have.

Philosophy does not answer the question of the meaning of life, but only complicates it.

Imagine that the goal of life is your happiness, and life is cruel nonsense. Recognize what human wisdom, your mind, and your heart tell you: that life is a service to the one who sent you into the world, and life becomes a constant joy.

Each person is a diamond who can purify himself or not, to the extent that he is purified, eternal light shines through him, therefore, the job of a person is not to try to shine, but to try to purify himself.

By the way, quotes about the meaning of life

About a human

A person is like a fraction: the numerator is what he is, the denominator is what he thinks about himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Eyes are the mirror of the soul.

Every person, in order to act, must consider his activity important and good. And therefore, whatever a person’s position, he will certainly form a view of human life in general in which his activity will seem important and good to him.

Strong people are always simple.

One of the main differences between people is how much people live according to their own thoughts and how much according to the thoughts of other people.

This is both the salvation and the execution of a person, that when he lives incorrectly, he can cloud himself so as not to see the misery of his situation.

People are not punished for their sins, but are punished by the sins themselves. And this is the heaviest and most certain punishment.

Oddly enough, the firmest, most unshakable beliefs are the most superficial. Deep convictions are always mobile.

People are like rivers: the water is the same in everyone and the same everywhere, but each river is sometimes narrow, sometimes fast, sometimes wide, sometimes quiet. So are people. Each person carries within himself the beginnings of all human properties and sometimes displays some, sometimes others, and is often completely unlike himself, remaining one and himself.

By the way, quotes about a person

About human manifestations

We all show courage in front of each other and forget that we are all, unless we love, pathetic, pathetic. But we are so brave and pretend to be angry and self-confident that we ourselves fall for it and mistake sick chickens for terrible lions...

People often pride themselves on the purity of their conscience simply because they have a short memory.

Digging into our souls, we often unearth things that would lie there unnoticed.

The closer people are to the truth, the more tolerant they are of other people's misconceptions.

Kindness decorates life, resolving all contradictions: it makes the confusing clear, the difficult - easy, the dark - joyful.

The least simple people are those who want to appear simple.

Pretending kindness is more repulsive than outright malice.

People seem stupid to each other mainly because they want to appear smarter.

The most offensive form of selfishness is self-sacrifice.

What begins in anger ends in shame.

He who does nothing always has many helpers.

There is no scoundrel who, having searched, would not find scoundrels in some respect worse than himself and who therefore could not find a reason to be proud and pleased with himself.

About art and creativity

The main goal of art... is to reveal, express the truth about the human soul... Art is a microscope that the artist points at the secrets of his soul and shows these secrets common to all people.

Art is one of the means of distinguishing good from evil, one of the means of recognizing the good.

Great objects of art are great only because they are understandable and accessible to everyone.

Poetry is a fire that lights up in a person’s soul. This fire burns, warms and illuminates.

A real poet himself involuntarily and with suffering burns and burns others. And that's the whole point.

To be an artist of words, it is necessary to have the ability to rise high in soul and fall low. Then all the intermediate stages are known, and he can live in his imagination, live the lives of people standing at different levels.

You should write only when you can’t help but write.

For a work to be good, you must love the main, main idea in it. So, in “Anna Karenina” I loved the idea of ​​family...

What a terrible mental poison modern literature is.

By the way, quotes about art and quotes about creativity

About relationships

What's the point of arguing? After all, one will never convince the other.

The power of one person over another destroys, first of all, the ruler.

We don't like people not because they are evil, but we consider them evil because we don't love them.

What a strange thing: I love myself, but no one loves me.

We are all bad, and therefore everything that we condemn in others, we will always find in ourselves. Let's forgive each other. One way for us to live in peace is mutual forgiveness.

There are moments when a man tells a woman more than she should know about him. He said - and forgot. And she remembers...

In the best, most friendly and simple relationships, flattery or praise is necessary, just as greasing is necessary for the wheels to keep them moving.

Every openly expressed thought, no matter how false, every clearly conveyed fantasy, no matter how absurd, cannot fail to find sympathy in some soul.

You can save a person who does not want to die.

About marriage and family

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

A happy marriage doesn't depend on how compatible you are, but on how you deal with your differences.

Most men demand from their wives virtues that they themselves are not worth.

We must always marry in the same way as we die, that is, only when it is impossible otherwise.

Apart from death, there is not a single act as significant, drastic, everything-changing and irrevocable as marriage.

The true and lasting union of a man and a woman is only in spiritual communication. Sexual communication without spirituality is a source of suffering for both spouses.

Motherhood is not a woman's highest calling.

By the way, quotes about weddings

About love

To love means to live the life of the one you love.

True love is not love for one person, but a mental state of readiness to love everyone.

It always seems that they love us because we are so good. But we don’t realize that they love us because those who love us are good.

It's easier to live without love. But without it there is no point.

If there are so many heads, so many minds, then there are so many hearts, so many kinds of love.

By the way, quotes about love

Oh happiness

Happiness comes more willingly to the house where a good mood always reigns.

Happy is he who is happy at home.

Happiness is pleasure without remorse.

Happiness does not lie in always doing what you want, but in always wanting what you do.

Happiness is the coincidence of the line of life with the line of the ideal.

There is a side to a dream that is better than reality; in reality there is a better side than the dream. Complete happiness would be a combination of both.

A person should always be happy; If happiness ends, look where you went wrong.

I know only two real misfortunes in life: remorse and illness. And happiness is only the absence of these two evils.

One of the most amazing misconceptions is that a person’s happiness lies in doing nothing.

By the way, quotes about happiness

About upbringing and education

Education seems to be a complex and difficult matter only as long as we want, without educating ourselves, to educate our children or anyone else. If we understand that we can educate others only through ourselves, by educating ourselves, then the question of education is abolished and one question of life remains: how should we live ourselves? I don't know of a single act of raising children that doesn't include raising yourself.

The basis of education is the establishment of an attitude to the beginning of everything and the resulting attitude of guidance of behavior.

In Russian, to punish means to teach. You can only teach by example.

Both upbringing and education are inseparable. You cannot educate without passing on knowledge; all knowledge has an educational effect.

I want education for the people only in order to save those drowning Pushkins, Ostrogradskys, Filarets, Lomonosovs. And they swarm in every school.

About knowledge

The point is not to know a lot, but to know the most necessary of all that can be known.

Knowledge is a tool, not a goal.

Don't be afraid of ignorance, be afraid of false knowledge. Everything is evil from him.

Knowledge humbles the great, astonishes the ordinary, and inflates the little man.

Knowledge is only knowledge when it is acquired through the efforts of one’s thoughts, and not through memory.

A scientist is one who knows a lot from books; educated - one who has mastered all the most common knowledge and techniques of his time; enlightened - one who understands the meaning of his life.

About conversation and silence

The one who has nothing to say speaks the most.

Silence is often the best answer.

Why talk when you can’t express in words what you feel.

People learn how to speak, but the main science is how and when to remain silent.

Speak only about what is clear to you, otherwise remain silent.

If you regret not speaking once, then you will regret not speaking a hundred times.

About truth

The greatest truths are the simplest.

A delusion does not cease to be a delusion just because the majority shares it.

All truths are paradoxes. The direct conclusions of reason are erroneous, the absurd conclusions of experience are infallible.

If you seek perfection, you will never be satisfied.

What is fair and unfair is not given to people to judge. People have always been mistaken and will continue to be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider just and unjust.

If you have not yet reached the point where two truths seem to you to contradict one another, you have not yet begun to think.

About good and evil

To believe in goodness, you need to start doing it.

When you do good, be grateful for it.

If good has a cause, it is no longer good; if it has a consequence - a reward, it is also not good. Therefore, good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

Evil is only inside us, that is, where it can be taken out from.

Superstition is evil. There is no evil. Life is good. Evil - the absence of good - is only a sign of delusion, error.

By the way, quotes about good and quotes about evil

About nature

Nature enters man through both breath and food, so that man cannot help but feel part of it and part of himself.

Happiness is being with nature, seeing it, talking to it.

The purest joy, the joy of nature.

As I approached Ovsyannikov, I looked at the lovely sunset. There is a gap in the piled-up clouds, and there, like a red, irregular corner, is the sun. All this above the forest, rye. Joyfully. And I thought: No, this world is not a joke, not a vale of testing only and transition to a better, eternal world, but this is one of the eternal worlds, which is beautiful, joyful and which we not only can, but must make more beautiful and joyful for those living with us and for those who will live in it after us.

About war

War... an event contrary to human reason and all human nature.

War is such an unjust and bad thing that those who fight try to drown out the voice of conscience within themselves.

War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and we must understand this and not play at war.

Is it really cramped for people to live in this beautiful world, under this immeasurable starry sky? Is it really possible that, amid this charming nature, a feeling of malice, revenge or the passion of exterminating one’s own kind can be retained in a person’s soul?

For me, the madness and criminality of the war, especially recently, when I wrote and therefore thought a lot about the war, are so clear that apart from this madness and criminality I cannot see anything in it.

By the way, quotes about war

About death

The very fact of the death of a close friend evoked in everyone who learned about it, as always, a feeling of joy that he died, and not me.

I died - I woke up. Yes, death is awakening!

If a person has learned to think, no matter what he thinks about, he always thinks about his death.

People who are afraid of death are afraid of it because it appears to them as emptiness and darkness; but they see emptiness and darkness because they do not see life.

About thought

Thought is the beginning of everything. And thoughts can be controlled. And therefore, the main thing to improve is to work on thoughts.

The grain is invisible in the ground, but only from it does a huge tree grow. Thought is also imperceptible, and only from thought do the greatest events of human life grow.

A thought only moves life when it is obtained by one’s own mind or even when it answers a question that has already arisen in the soul. An alien thought, perceived by the mind and memory, does not affect life and gets along with actions that are contrary to it.

By the way, quotes about thoughts

About self-development and self-improvement

Everyone wants to change humanity, but no one thinks about how to change themselves.

Self-improvement is characteristic of man because he can never, if he is truthful, be satisfied with himself.

An immortal soul needs something as immortal as itself. And this thing, endless improvement of oneself and the world, was given to her.

The degree of truthfulness of a person is an indicator of the degree of his moral perfection.

About the authorities

I am seriously convinced that the world is ruled by completely crazy people.

The strength of the government rests on the ignorance of the people, and it knows this and therefore will always fight against enlightenment. It's time for us to understand this.

When revolutionaries achieve power, they must inevitably act in the same way as all those in power do, that is, commit violence, that is, do something without which there is and cannot be power.

About patriotism

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest and most undeniable meaning is nothing more for rulers than a tool for achieving power-hungry and selfish goals, and for the governed it is a renunciation of human dignity, reason, conscience and slavish subordination of oneself to those in power. This is how it is preached wherever patriotism is preached. Patriotism is slavery.

I met an Estonian clerk, a businesslike, sober, handsome man, and for the first time I clearly understood the meaning of “Russia” - the Horde, which plundered the good, morally and mentally superior nations of the horde and is now proud of this and is holding back the conquered with all its might. No matter how disgusting the deed itself is, even more disgusting is its justification, called patriotism.

About the word

We often repeat that a person is judged by his deeds, but sometimes we forget that a word is also an action. A person’s speech is a mirror of himself.

One person will shout in a building filled with people: “We’re on fire!” - and the crowd rushes, and dozens, hundreds of people are killed. Such is the obvious harm produced by the word. But this harm is no less great when we do not see the people who have suffered from our words.

By the way, quotes about speech and words

About the time

Time is endless movement, without a single moment of rest - and it cannot be conceived otherwise.

There is no time, there is only a moment. And therefore, in this one moment you must put all your strength.

By the way, quotes about time

About freedom

There is no complete freedom, but a person approaches freedom as he unites his mind and love with God.

Only those who no one and nothing can stop them from doing what they want are free. There is only one such thing - to love.

By the way, quotes about freedom

About music

Music is the highest art in the world.

Music is a shorthand for feelings.

About labor

Work, work! How happy I feel when I work.

Physical labor not only does not exclude the possibility of mental activity, not only improves its dignity, but encourages it.

About miscellaneous

People like slander so much that it is very difficult to resist doing something nice for your interlocutors: not condemning a person.

A madman is, first of all, a person who is not understood.

Conscience is the memory of society assimilated by an individual.

You cannot scare off children with harshness; they only cannot stand lies.

Old age is the biggest surprise in life.

We often look at the ancients as children. And we are children in front of the ancients, in front of their deep, serious, uncluttered understanding of life.

There is no effort so small that wisdom cannot be manifested.

Humor is a great strength. Nothing brings people together like a good, harmless laugh.

In one smile lies what is called the beauty of the face: if a smile adds beauty to the face, then the face is beautiful; if she does not change it, then it is ordinary; if she spoils it, then it is bad.

As we see, in the above quotes, Tolstoy appeared both as a wise man, and as a man who considered himself God, and as a subtle psychologist, and as a subverter of existing orders, who was in chronic discord with those near and far. But still, there is probably much more than anything else.

Quotes about Tolstoy

• I. Turgenev: Count Leo Tolstoy is one of the most remarkable writers of the new Russian literary school, the school that comes from Pushkin and Gogol, and much more from our great humorist than from our great poet. One can even say that after the publication of Count Tolstoy’s last work, “War and Peace,” an original and multifaceted work that combines an epic, a historical novel and an essay on morals, it decisively occupies first place in the public’s favor. (by the way, quotes from Ivan Turgenev)
• M. Saltykov-Shchedrin: Tolstoy talks about universal love, but he himself has an income of 30 thousand rubles, lives for show in a closet and sews boots for himself, and in the hallway there is a footman in a white tie, this, they say, is not me, but his wife. But Mikhailovsky, Skabinechev and others have nothing to eat. (by the way, quotes from Mizail Saltykov-Shchedrin)
• V. Klyuchevsky: Tolstoy is a late parody of the ancient Russian holy fool, who walked naked along the city streets without being ashamed of it. (by the way, quotes from Klyuchevsky)
• V. Lenin: What a block, huh? What a seasoned little man! This, my friend, is an artist... And, you know what else is amazing? Before this count, there was no real man in literature. (by the way, quotes from Vladimir Lenin)
• M. Gandhi: He was the greatest champion of non-violence of our time. No one in the West, either before or after him, has written so much and persistently about nonviolence, with such insight and insight. Moreover, Tolstoy’s outstanding contribution to the development of the idea of ​​non-violence is capable of putting to shame the current narrow and distorted interpretation of it in our homeland by supporters of ahimsa. (by the way, quotes from Mahatma Gandhi)
• S. Zweig: For thirty years, from 20 to 50 years of his life, Tolstoy lived creatively, carefree and free. 30 years - from the 50th to the end of his life in the struggle for the unattainable, chained to the latter. His unshakable vitality explains such insatiable, unfading creativity: not a single year can be considered barren and empty among the 60 years of his creative life. For his creative spirit never rests.
• E. Hemingway: A writer who almost never found mot juste (the right word) and yet sometimes knew how to make his characters so alive as no one else had them. (by the way, Hemingway quotes)
• T. Mann: Tolstoy knew art; he suffered from it, he suffered so much because of art and in the name of art; he accomplished something in the field of art that we, mere mortals, do not dare to dream of.
• V. Astafiev: And I’m still afraid, very afraid, of not being able to withstand the harsh judgment of the thinker and creator, the greatest of the people born on earth over many thousands of years of its existence, with whom I was given the good fortune of being born in the same country - Russia. The eternal consciousness of love and fear lives in me: I am doing the same work that HE did! (by the way, quotes from Viktor Astafiev)
• M. Tyson: Tolstoy is a cool dude. Everyone should read this dude.

Next, you can go to Tolstoy’s phraseological units or to other collections of quotes from Russian writers:

• Confucius Quotes
• Napoleon Quotes
• Pushkin Quotes
• Quotes from Nekrasov
• Dostoevsky Quotes
• Chekhov Quotes

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Statements about Tolstoy and his work

SOVIET WRITERS ABOUT TOLSTOY

A. S. SERAFIMOVICH

I consider L. Tolstoy the only writer unsurpassed in genius.

From a questionnaire for the magazine “Ogonyok”, 1927,

A. N. TOLSTOY

For me, Leo Tolstoy is one of the four main and favorite ones: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy. He destroyed a smooth, beautiful phrase, the purpose of which was to caress the ear, and introduced an individual epithet into the phrase; brought the noun to the main place and returned the plastic force to the word. No wonder he was reproached for his “heavy language.” He made language a tool of Image.

Afanasy Fet, poet, friend of the Tolstoy family

“Well,” thought the count, “it’s all over. I missed and won’t have time to shoot at her another time.” But at that very moment he saw something dark above his head. It was a she-bear who, instantly returning back, tried to bite through the skull of the hunter who had wounded her. Tolstoy could only offer passive resistance, trying, if possible, to pull his head into his shoulders and place his shaggy hat under the animal’s throat. Perhaps, as a result of such instinctive techniques, the animal, having missed with its teeth a couple of times, only managed to give one significant grip, breaking through the cheek under the left eye with its upper teeth and tearing off the entire left half of the skin from the forehead with its lower teeth. At that moment, Ostashkov, who happened to be nearby, with a small, as always, twig in his hand, ran up to the bear and, spreading his arms, shouted his usual: “Where are you going? where are you going?" Hearing this exclamation, the bear rushed away as fast as she could...

The first word of Tolstoy, who had risen to his feet with the skin of his forehead hanging on his face, which was immediately tied up with handkerchiefs, was: “Will Fet say something?”

About the revolution

March 11, 1910

What the revolution did in our Russian people was that they suddenly saw the injustice of their situation. This is a fairy tale about a king in a new dress. The child who said what is, that the Tsar is naked, was a revolution.

The people have become aware of the untruth they are suffering, and the people have varied attitudes towards this untruth (most of them, unfortunately, with malice); but all the people already understand it. And it is no longer possible to eradicate this consciousness. And what our government is doing, trying to suppress the ineradicable consciousness of the untruth being endured, is increasing this untruth and causing an increasingly angry attitude towards this untruth.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composer

When I met L.N. Fat, I was overcome with fear and a feeling of awkwardness in front of him. It seemed to me that this greatest heart expert would penetrate into all the recesses of my soul with one glance. In front of him, it seemed to me, it was no longer possible to successfully hide all the rubbish that exists at the bottom of the soul and show only the casual (winning - editor's note) side. If he is kind (and he should be and is so, of course), I thought, then he will delicately, gently, like a doctor studying a wound and knowing all the sore spots, will avoid touching and irritating them, but in this way he will make me feel that nothing is hidden from him; if he is not particularly compassionate, he will directly point his finger at the center of the pain. I was terribly afraid of both, but neither of them happened. The deepest expert in the heart in the scriptures, in his dealings with people he turned out to be a simple, integral, sincere nature, who showed very little of that omniscience that I feared. He didn't avoid being touched, but he didn't intentionally cause pain. It was obvious that he did not at all see me as an object for his research, but he simply wanted to chat about music, which he was interested in at that time.

Perhaps never in my life, however, I was not so flattered and touched in my author’s pride as when L.N. Tolstoy, listening to the andante of my 1st quartet and sitting next to me, burst into tears.”

Thoughts on education and upbringing

In order to raise a person fit for the future, it is necessary to educate him, keeping in mind a completely perfect Man - only then will the pupil be a worthy member of the generation in which he will have to live.

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That is, the author wanted to say that one should always strive for perfection. And even if the ideal seems unattainable, you should move towards it step by step every day. Only in this case will a person be worthy of being called a person.

If a teacher has only love for his work, he will be a good teacher. If a teacher has love for the student, like a father or mother, he will be better than the teacher who has read all the books, but has no love for either the work or the students.

This statement is more relevant than ever, because modern teachers are driven not by the desire to raise children into worthy people, but by the motivation to earn more money. Although it would be wrong to blame them for this.

Nikolai Strakhov, literary critic, friend of the writer

. In the summer of 1877, I visited Count[a] L.N. Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana (June, July) and gave him the idea to review “Anna Karenina” in order to prepare it for a separate publication. I undertook to read ahead, correct punctuation and obvious errors, and point out to Lev Nikolaevich places that for some reason seemed to me to require corrections - mainly, even almost exclusively, incorrect language and obscurity.

In the morning, having talked a lot over coffee (it was served at noon on the terrace), we dispersed and everyone got to work. I worked in the office downstairs. It was agreed that an hour or half an hour before lunch (5 o'clock) we should go for a walk to freshen up and work up an appetite. No matter how pleasant the work was to me, I, due to my characteristic attentiveness, usually did not miss the deadline and, getting ready for a walk, began to call Lev Nikolaevich. He almost always hesitated, and sometimes it was difficult to tear him away from work. In such cases, traces of tension were very clear: a slight rush of blood to the head was noticeable, Lev Nikolaevich was absent-minded and ate very little at dinner.

We worked like this every day for more than a month.

This hard work paid off. As much as I loved the novel in its original form, I soon became convinced that Lev Nikolayevich’s amendments were always made with amazing skill. Lev Nikolaevich firmly defended his slightest expression and did not agree to the most apparently innocent changes. From his explanations, I was convinced that he incredibly values ​​his language and that, despite all the apparent carelessness and unevenness of his style, he thinks about every word, every turn of speech no worse than the most scrupulous poet. In general, how much he thinks, how much he works with his head, I was always surprised by this, it struck me as news at every meeting, and only this abundance of soul and mind explains the power of his works.

Quotes from the novel “Anna Karenina”

All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Respect was invented in order to hide the empty place where love should be.

I am so proud that I will never allow myself to love a person who does not love me.

All the diversity, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of shadow and light.

Here's the thing. Suppose you are married, you love your wife, but you are carried away by another woman... - Sorry, but I absolutely don’t understand this, as if... just as I don’t understand how now, having eaten my fill, I would immediately go past the kalachnaya and steal the kalach .

In order to do anything in family life, either complete discord between spouses or loving consent is necessary. When the relationship between the spouses is uncertain and there is neither one nor the other, no business can be undertaken.

Shame and disgrace! The only thing you're afraid of is meeting Russians abroad.

Digging into our souls, we often unearth things that would lie there unnoticed.

If good has a cause, it is no longer good; if it has a consequence - a reward, it is also not good. Therefore, good is outside the chain of cause and effect.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot get used, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives the same way.

Woman, you see, this is such a subject that no matter how much you study it, everything will be completely new. - It’s better not to study it. - No. Some mathematician said that pleasure does not lie in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it.

He looked at her as a man looks at a flower he has picked and withered, in which he hardly recognizes the beauty for which he picked and destroyed it.

Live not for your own needs, but for God. For which God? And what can be said that is more senseless than what he said? He said that we should not live for our needs, that is, that we should not live for what we understand, what we are drawn to, what we want, but we must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one understands, cannot determine. And what? I didn’t understand these meaningless words of Fedor? And having understood, you doubted their justice? found them stupid, unclear, inaccurate?.

He realized that she was not only close to him, but that he now did not know where she ended and he began. (Levin-Kitty)

If you seek perfection, you will never be satisfied.

If you are already proud of the breed, then you should not stop at Rurik and renounce the first ancestor - the monkey.

What's the point of arguing? After all, one will never convince the other.

Ilya Repin, artist, friend of the Tolstoy family

One hot August day, in the very heat of the day, after breakfast, Lev Nikolaevich was going to plow the widow’s field; I received permission to accompany him. We set off at one o'clock in the afternoon. He was wearing a summer white cap and a light coat over a tailored lilac work shirt. At the stable, Lev Nikolaevich took two workhorses, put workhorses on them without harnesses and led them on the reins.

. We left the yard and started plowing. Monotonous, long, to the point of boredom.

For six hours without rest, he plowed the black earth with a plow, now going up the mountain, now going down the sloping terrain to the ravine. I had a little album in my hands, and without wasting any time, I stood in front of the middle of his passage line and caught in my features the moment the entire motorcade passed me.

Yasnaya Polyana peasants often passed by, took off their hats, bowed and moved on, as if not noticing the count’s feat.

Finally, I asked permission to try plowing. I barely walked the line downhill - I veered terribly, and when I had to climb uphill, I couldn’t take ten steps. It's terribly difficult!

“This is out of habit,” said Lev Nikolaevich. “And I didn’t get used to it right away; Tomorrow the work will be felt in your hands and shoulders. Yes, physical labor is still the hardest,” he reasoned good-naturedly with a smile.

Konstantin Stanislavsky, theater director

Around this time [in 1893], our amateur circle, the Society of Art and Literature, played several performances in Tula. Rehearsals and other preparations for our tour took place there, in the hospitable home of Nikolai Vasilyevich Davydov, a close friend of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

One day, in the midst of the fun, the figure of a man in a peasant sheepskin coat appeared in the hallway. Soon an old man with a long beard, wearing felt boots and a gray blouse, belted with a belt, entered the dining room. He was greeted with a general exclamation of joy. At first I didn’t understand that it was L.N. Tolstoy. Not a single photograph, not even portraits painted from him, can convey the impression that was obtained from his living face and figure. Is it possible to convey on paper or canvas the eyes of L.N. Tolstoy, who pierced the soul and accurately probed it! These eyes were either sharp, prickly, or soft, sunny. When Tolstoy looked closely at a person, he became motionless, concentrated, inquisitively penetrated inside him and as if sucked out everything that was hidden in him - good or bad. At these moments his eyes were hidden behind his overhanging eyebrows, like the sun behind a cloud. At other moments, Tolstoy responded to a joke like a child, burst into sweet laughter, and his eyes became cheerful and playful, coming out of his thick eyebrows and shining.

During his life we ​​said: “What a blessing to live at the same time as Tolstoy!” And when things became bad in our souls or in life and people seemed like beasts, we consoled ourselves with the thought that there, in Yasnaya Polyana, he lives - Leo Tolstoy! “And I wanted to live again.”

About progress and civilization

April 14, 1903. Yasnaya Polyana

People usually measure the progress of mankind by its technical and scientific successes, believing that civilization leads to good. This is not true. Both Rousseau and all those who admire the savage, patriarchal state are just as right or as wrong as those who admire civilization. The benefit of people living and enjoying the highest, most refined civilization, culture, and the most primitive, wild people are exactly the same. It is just as impossible to increase the benefit of people through science - civilization, culture - as it is to make sure that on a water plane the water in one place is higher than in others.

The increase in the good of people only comes from an increase in love, which by its nature equals all people; Scientific and technical successes are a matter of age, and civilized people are just as little superior to uncivilized people in their well-being as an adult is superior to a non-adult in their well-being. The benefit comes only from increased love.

Mikhail Nesterov, artist, author of portraits of the writer

. This is already the third day that I have been in Yasnaya Polyana. Lev Nikolaevich, in addition to waiting, on the very first day offered to pose for me at work, also during rest. Two or three hours later I was sitting in his office, sketching in an album, and he was talking with Biryukov (his historiographer).

The old man is still cheerful: he gallops on horseback like you and I never dreamed of, he walks in any weather. The first day, as usual, I was “examined,” while I, without leaving my program, worked silently, vigilantly looking at everything around me. Lev Nikolaevich himself broke the silence. Imperceptibly, things came to views on art (talking with Lev Nikolaevich is not difficult: he does not force thoughts). In the evening the conversation became general, and I was told with pleasant amazement: “So that’s what you are like!” Before going to bed, in order to catch the train “before light”, saying goodbye to everyone, I offered my hand to Dr. Dusan Petrovich Makovitsky, he held it in his, noticing my fever, put on a thermometer, the temperature was 40! The chores began, Lev Nikolaevich brought his flannel belly and some kind of warm jacket. The belly of the “great writer of the Russian land”! Thanks to the care of the kind Dusan Petrovic, I fell asleep well. In the morning I was out of danger, but they left me for several days in Yasnaya, and I managed to make several pencil sketches of Lev Nikolaevich. One of them, according to him, with his expression and gentleness resembled “brother Nikolinka.” I'm glad I came here. Life here is simple, and Tolstoy himself is a whole “poem”. His old age is wonderful. He cunningly eliminates the “vanity of vanities” from himself, remaining in his artistic and philosophical dreams. Yasnaya Polyana is a neglected estate; she is sustained by the energy and concerns of the countess, the most “worldly” person.

Quotes from the novel "War and Peace"

You have to live, you have to love, you have to believe. Pierre Bezukhov

If vicious people are connected with each other and constitute a force, then honest people need to do only the same.

Lately my life has become difficult. I see that I have begun to understand too much. Andrey Bolkonsky

I am considered an evil person, I know - so be it! I don’t want to know anyone except those I love; but whom I love, I love him so much that I will give my life, and I will crush the rest if they stand on the road. Fyodor Dolokhov To live honestly, you have to struggle, get confused, struggle, make mistakes, start and quit again, and start again, and quit again, and always struggle and lose. And calmness is spiritual meanness.

Whoever understands everything will forgive everything. Marya Bolkonskaya

The battle is won by the one who is determined to win it! Andrey Bolkonsky

I remember that I said that a fallen woman must be forgiven, but I did not say that I could forgive. I can't. Andrei Bolkonsky... In dealing with women, Anatole had that manner that most of all inspires curiosity, fear and even love in women - a manner of contemptuous consciousness of his superiority.

How can you be healthy... when you suffer morally? Anna Pavlovna Sherer

Everything comes on time for those who know how to wait. Tout vient à point à celui qui sait attendre. Kutuzov quotes Francois Rabelais.

And there is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

We love people not so much for the good they have done to us, but for the good we have done to them.

To be so defiantly defiantly happy. Anna Pavlovna Sherer

A young man needs nothing more than the company of smart women

I know only two real misfortunes in life: remorse and illness. And happiness is only the absence of these two evils.

We think how we will be thrown out of our usual path, that everything is lost; and here something new and good is just beginning. As long as there is life, there is happiness.

Why talk when you can’t express in words what you feel.

War is not a courtesy, but the most disgusting thing in life, and we must understand this and not play at war.

What is fair and unfair is not given to people to judge. People have always been mistaken and will continue to be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider just and unjust.

If we assume that human life can be controlled by reason, then the possibility of life will be destroyed.

Alexander Kuprin, writer

I assure you that I looked at this man as if he were a miracle. ...Therefore, I think it would not be superfluous to talk about how I saw Tolstoy in the spring of 1905.

Sergei Yakovlevich Elpatievsky warned me that Tolstoy was leaving Yalta tomorrow morning. I clearly remember a wonderful morning, a cheerful wind, the sea - restless, sparkling - and the steamer "St. Nicholas", where I boarded an hour before Lev Nikolaevich's arrival. He arrived in a two-horse carriage with the top raised. The carriage stopped. And then an old man’s foot in a high wader boot appeared from the carriage, looking for footrests, then slowly, like an old man, he walked out. He was wearing a short drape coat, high boots, and a second-hand bowler hat. And this costume, together with gray and green hair and a long flowing beard, made a funny and touching impression. He looked like an old Jew, one of those that are so often found in southwestern Russia.

I was introduced to him. I cannot say what color his eyes are, because I was very confused at that moment, and also because I attach almost no importance to eye color. I remember shaking his big, cold, stiff, senile hand. I remember the surprise that struck me: instead of a huge, venerable old man, like Michelangelo’s Moses, I saw an old man of average height, careful and precise in his movements. I remember his tired, senile, thin voice. In general, he gave the impression of a very old and sick man. But I had already seen how these calm eyes, faded with time, with small sharp pupils, unconsciously, out of habit, absorbed the deft running of the sailors, and the lifting of the winch, and the crowd on the pier, and the sky, and the sun, and the sea, and, it seems that the souls of all of us who were on the ship at that time.

About the Russian word

One person will shout in a building filled with people: “We’re on fire!” - and the crowd rushes, and dozens, hundreds of people are killed.

This statement perfectly describes what is happening on modern television. All it takes is one fool to blurt out something stupid, and millions of people will pick up this idea without even thinking with their own heads.

Such is the obvious harm produced by the word. But this harm is no less great when we do not see the people who have suffered from our words.

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With this statement, the author calls on his readers to be responsible for the words they speak, because they can cause harm to other people. It is not for nothing that the famous saying says that a word is not a sparrow.

Maxim Gorky, writer

. I know as well as anyone that there is no person more worthy of the name of genius, more complex, contradictory and beautiful in everything, yes, yes, in everything. Beautiful in some special sense, broad, elusive in words; there is something in him that has always made me want to shout to everyone: look what an amazing person lives on earth! For he is, so to speak, comprehensively and first of all a man, a man of humanity.

He has always highly praised immortality on the other side of life, but he likes it better on this side. A national writer in the truest meaning of this concept, he embodied in his enormous soul all the shortcomings of the nation, all the injuries inflicted on us by the torture of our history; his vague preaching of “non-doing,” “non-resistance to evil” is a preaching of passivism, all this unhealthy fermentation of old Russian blood, poisoned by Mongolian fanaticism and, so to speak, chemically hostile to the West with its tireless creative work.

Source

About the appointment of Russia

1865 August 13th. Yasnaya Polyana

Russia's universally popular task is to introduce into the world the idea of ​​a social system without land ownership.

“La propriété c'est le vol” will remain more true than the truth of the English constitution as long as the human race continues to exist. This is an absolute truth, but there are also relative truths that follow from it—applications.

The first of these relative truths is the view of the Russian people on property. The Russian people deny the most durable property, the most independent of labor, and the property that more than any other constrains the right of other people to acquire property, land property.

This truth is not a dream - it is a fact - expressed in peasant communities, in Cossack communities. This truth is understood equally by the learned Russian and the peasant who says: let them enroll us as Cossacks and the land will be free. This idea has a future. The Russian revolution can only be based on it. The Russian revolution will not be against the tsar and despotism, but against land ownership. She will say: from me, from a man, take and take whatever you want, and leave all the land to us. Autocracy does not interfere with, but promotes this order of things. — (I saw all this in a dream on August 13.)