“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

— Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Ch. 2

About Leo Tolstoy

1828 – 1910

Russian novelist and moral philosopher, author of 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina'.

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.”

“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

“The wise man will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can.”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.”

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”