#nina

They haven’t an idea what happiness is; they don’t know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappiness—no life at all ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#life

I've always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love #tolstoy #love

He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#fear #levin #love #love

If you think I'm happy when you're not around, it's because I'm thinking of you. ↗

— Jamie McGuire

#nina #love

There are as many loves as there are hearts. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#hearts #love #love

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#anna-karenina #avoiding #flattery #gaze #love

He knew she was there by the joy and terror that took possession of his heart [...] Everything was lit up by her. She was the smile that brightened everything around. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#leo-tolstoy #love #love

She put both her hands on his shoulders and gazed at him long, with a deep look of ecstasy and yet searchingly. She scrutinized his face to make up for the time she had not seen him. She compared, as she did at every interview with him, the image her fancy painted of him (incomparably finer than, and impossible in actual existence) with his real self ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#leo-tolstoy #love #love

Scese, evitando di guardarla a lungo, come si fa col sole; ma vedeva lei, come si vede il sole, anche senza guardare. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love #love

Lord have mercy! Pardon and help us!" he repeated the words that suddenly and unexpectedly sprang to his lips. And he, an unbeliever, repeated those words not with his lips only. At that instant he knew that neither his doubts nor the impossibility of believing with his reason- of which he was conscious- all prevented his appealing to God. It all flew off like dust. To whom should he appeal, if not to Him in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, and his love, to be? ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love