Lev Lvovich Tolstoy

“In what did Tolstoi's work actually consist? It is the outcry of the universal conscience. His works voice the consciences of us all, expressed sincerely by the most ardent and the most sensitive of hearts. The popularity of Tolstoi throughout the world is explained solely by the simplicity and the sincerity of his doctrine, which appeals to all, without distinction, calling on mankind to recognise the same great truth, to make the same great moral effort for the realisation of love.”

“In France it is often said that Tolstoi was the first and great cause of the Russian Revolution, and there is a good deal of truth in this. Nobody has done more destructive work in any country than Tolstoi. The peasant, the soldier, the public official, the nobleman, the priest, and the workman were all reached by the arrows of his accusing mind. There was nobody in the whole nation, in fact, who did not feel himself guilty, from the point of view of the severe condemnation of the great writer.”

“Schopenhauer's ideas on women, on pain, and on freedom of conscience were always completely shared by my father. "When one suffers," said Schopenhauer, "one has the consolation of knowing that the sufferings of others may be greater than one's own." Tolstoi loved to repeat this thought, though I must confess that for me it meant nothing. To my mind, on the contrary, one may suffer still more when one has the knowledge that others are suffering also.”