Sublime

The Christianity of Tolstoy is, when we come to consider it, one of the most thrilling and dramatic incidents in our modern civilisation.

pernicious,

Every person should define for himself his attitude to this world and to God.

"What dwells in man I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given him. It is not given to man to know his own needs.

In other words, what makes us think of Tolstoy as a moral-ethical giant here is a technique (going from mind to mind) coupled with a confidence. Of what is Tolstoy confident? That people are more similar to him than different. That he has an inner Vasili, an inner aged host, an inner Petrushka, an inner Nikita. This confidence serves as a gateway t

Chekhov and Tolstoy,

Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory. Only when we forget what we were taught do we start to have real knowledge.

Outre ce mensonge, ce qui faisait surtout souffrir Ivan Ilitch, c’est que personne ne le plaignait comme il aurait voulu être plaint. Ce qu’il désirait le plus dans ses moments de souffrances, c’était, quoiqu’il eût honte de l’avouer, qu’on le plaignît comme un enfant malade. Il aurait voulu qu’on le caressât, qu’on l’embrassât, que l’on pleurât su