“The difference between him as he was then and as he was now was great … Then he was a courageous, free man, before whom opened endless possibilities; now he felt himself caught in the tenets of a stupid, idle, aimless, miserable life, from which there was no escape; aye, from which, for the most part, he would not escape. He remembered how he once had prided himself upon his rectitude; how he always made it a rule to tell the truth, and was in reality truthful, and how he was now steeped in falsehood—falsehood which was recognized as truth by all those around him.”

— Leo Tolstoy , book Resurrection

Source: Resurrection (1899), Ch. 28

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Leo Tolstoy 456

Russian writer 1828–1910

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