Leo Women Quotes & Sayings

Natasha, in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked, as women can walk, with the more repose and stateliness the greater the pain and shame in her soul. — Leo Tolstoy

Why is gambling forbidden while women in costumes which evoke sensuality are not forbidden? They are a thousand times more dangerous! — Leo Tolstoy

Then as now much time was spent arguing about the rights of women, husband-and-wife relationships and freedom and rights within marriage, but Natasha had no interest in any such questions.
Questions like these, then as now, existed exclusively for people who see marriage only in terms of satisfaction given and received by the married couple, though this is only one principle of married life rather than its overall meaning, which lies in the family. — Leo Tolstoy

Sometimes he remembered having heard how soldiers under fire in the trenches, and having nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. It seemed to Pierre that all men were like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in government service. 'Nothing is without consequence, and nothing is important: it's all the same in the end. The thing to do is to save myself from it all as best I can,' thought Pierre. Not to see IT, that terrible IT. — Leo Tolstoy

Here's my advice to you: don't marry until you can tell yourself that you've done all you could, and until you've stopped loving the women you've chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you'll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you're old and good for nothing ... Otherwise all that's good and lofty in you will be lost. — Leo Tolstoy

It was his vocation to pleasure as many women as possible, in pursuit of his own pleasure. It was as close to a job as he got. — Rosanna Leo

I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world. — Melissa Leo

I would not take a young man to a lock-hospital to knock the hankering after women out of him, but into my soul to see the devils that were rending it. — Leo Tolstoy

Woman is more impressionable than man. Therefore in the Golden Age they were better than men. Now they are worse. — Leo Tolstoy

Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and agonies of the soul, but all the time his most tormenting tragedy has been, is, and will always be, the tragedy of the bedroom. — Leo Tolstoy

But I'm married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one's wife, if one loves her, as some one has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them. — Leo Tolstoy

She was so plain that neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress can make a face pretty. — Leo Tolstoy

Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same - only to save oneself from it as best one can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it! — Leo Tolstoy

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. — Leo Tolstoy

A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully. — Leo Tolstoy

I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices," Anna began suddenly, "but I hate him for his virtues. I can't live with him. Do you understand? — Leo Tolstoy

Before, when I was ordered to consider him intelligent, I kept on trying to and I considered myself stupid for not seeing how intelligent he was; but the moment I said, "he's stupid," but said it in a whisper, everything became quite clear. — Leo Tolstoy

Women are the pivot round which the world turns. — Leo Tolstoy

All were happy
plants, birds, insects and children. But grown-up people
adult men and women
never left off cheating and tormenting themselves and one another. It was not this spring morning which they considered sacred and important, not the beauty of God's world, given to all creatures to enjoy
a beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony and to love. — Leo Tolstoy

When I have one foot in the grave, I will tell the whole truth about women. I shall tell it, jump into my coffin, pull the lid over me and say, "Do what you like now." — Leo Tolstoy

I know more of the world than you do," she said. "I know how men like Stiva look at it. You speak of his talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men are unfaithful, but their home and wife are sacred to them. Somehow or other these women are still looked on with contempt by them, and do not touch on their feeling for their family. They draw a sort of line that can't be crossed between them and their families. I don't understand it, but it is so. — Leo Tolstoy

But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon. — Leo Tolstoy

I don't date. I'm strictly for recreational purposes. - Leo — Kristan Higgins

Woman is generally so bad that the difference between a good and a bad woman scarcely exists. — Leo Tolstoy

A Frenchman is self-assured because he considers himself personally, in mind as well as body, irresistibly enchanting for men as well as women. An Englishman is self-assured on the grounds that he is a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore, as an Englishman, he always knows what he must do, and knows that everything he does as an Englishman is unquestionably good. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully. A German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for him is the absolute truth. — Leo Tolstoy

I beg your pardon?" Catherine interrupted. "Are you implying that women have poor judgment?"
"In these matters, yes." Leo gestured to Christopher. "Just look at the fellow, standing there like a bloody Greek god. Do you think she chose him because of his intellect?"
"I graduated from Cambridge," Christopher said acidly. "Should I have brought my diploma?"
"In this family," Cam interrupted, "there is no requirement of a university degree to prove one's intelligence. Lord Ramsay is a perfect example of how one has nothing to do with the other. — Lisa Kleypas

Where are there any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as the blessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving men and women make for one another? And what altar can be compared with the heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice? — Leo Tolstoy

[T]he social relationship of young women to young men ... now seemed to Kitty like ignominious exposure of merchandise to be taken by the highest bidder. — Leo Tolstoy

Often seeing the success she had with young and old men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her. — Leo Tolstoy

These stupid chignons! There's no getting at the real daughter. One simply strokes the bristles of dead women. — Leo Tolstoy

Women, especially those who have passed through the school of marriage, know very well that conversations upon elevated subjects are only conversations, and that man seeks and desires the body and all that ornaments the body. — Leo Tolstoy

- Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position? - c'est le pigeon, Joseph. Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he lapped the sweet lait chaud with pink young tongue, plump bunny's face. Lap, lapin. He hopes to win in the gros lots. About the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me La Vie de Jesus by M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. - C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re. - Il croit? - Mon pere, oui. — James Joyce

Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible. — Leo Tolstoy

He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them." "As opposed to women," Leo retorted, "who have the remarkable ability to make decisions without doing any thinking at all. — Lisa Kleypas

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women. — Leo Tolstoy

Women have made of themselves such a weapon to act upon the senses that a young man, and even an old man, cannot remain tranquil in their presence. Watch a popular festival, or our receptions or ball-rooms. Woman well knows her influence there. You will see it in her triumphant smiles. — Leo Tolstoy

Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it's always perfectly new. — Leo Tolstoy

Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir. — Leo Rosten

Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognise the gulf that separates them from us. — Leo Tolstoy

Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He — Leo Tolstoy

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day - that is, forget oneself. To forget himself in sleep was impossible now, at least till nighttime; he could not go back now to the music sung by the decanter-women; so he must forget himself in the dream of daily life. — Leo Tolstoy

As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of Prince Bolkonsky's household felt that their life had not been real till then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing, immediately increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness full of significance. — Leo Tolstoy

There were not enough women like Kay on TV and now there are none. — Melissa Leo

Yes, yes, how was it now?" he thought, going over his dream. "Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoro - not Il mio tesoro though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too," he remembered. — Leo Tolstoy

There would be no need for the women's movement if the church and Bible hadn't abused them — Leo Booth

I've never seen exquisite fallen beings, and I never shall see them, but such creatures as that painted Frenchwoman at the counter with the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women are the same.'
'But the Magdalen?'
'Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered. — Leo Tolstoy

Like the majority of irreproachably virtuous women, wearying often of the monotony of a virtuous life, Dolly from a distance excused illicit love, and even envied it a little. — Leo Tolstoy

He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women. — Leo Tolstoy

...without any conscientious scruples condoning impurity in themselves, required ideal and angelic purity in their women... — Leo Tolstoy

Where's Nadine?" "She went out for a walk the other day and didn't come back." "Really." I tried to sound surprised. "No sweat," he said. "Pussy may well be the only true renewable resource, Leo. I've got another one lined up for when I get back." I had to admire a man with that kind of insight and planning. — G.M. Ford

All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. — Leo Tolstoy

There is trouble with a wife, but it's even worse with a woman who is not a wife. — Leo Tolstoy

The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her called virtuous, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived. — Leo Tolstoy

I'll come some day," he said. "But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon. Things are in a bad way with me, very bad. And it's all through women. Tell me frankly now," he pursued, picking up a cigar and keeping one hand on his glass; "give me your advice. — Leo Tolstoy

Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion - science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. — Leo Tolstoy

Ah, don't grieve, little falcon,' he said with that tenderly melodious gentleness with which old Russian women speak. 'Don't grieve, little friend: you suffer an hour, you live an age! So it is, my dear. And we live here, thank God, with no offense. There's bad people, and there's good — Leo Tolstoy