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

—  Leo Tolstoy , book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul." by Leo Tolstoy?
Leo Tolstoy photo
Leo Tolstoy 456
Russian writer 1828–1910

Related quotes

J.M. Coetzee photo

“His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.”

Source: Disgrace (1999), p. 3-4
Context: Although he devoted hours of each day to his new discipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human society has created language in order that we may communicate our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to each other.' His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

Orhan Pamuk photo
George Meredith photo

“For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

The Lark Ascending http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/lark_ascending.htm, l. 65-70 (1881).

Arthur Ponsonby photo

“The defilement of the human soul is worse than the destruction of the human body. A fuller realization of this is essential.”

Arthur Ponsonby (1871–1946) British Liberal and later Labour politician and pacifist

Falsehood in Wartime (1928), Introduction
Context: In calm retrospect we can appreciate better the disastrous effects of the poison of falsehood, whether officially, semi-officially, or privately manufactured. It has been rightly said that the injection of the poison of hatred into men's minds by means of falsehood is a greater evil in war-time than the actual loss of life. The defilement of the human soul is worse than the destruction of the human body. A fuller realization of this is essential.

Jane Roberts photo
Alice Walker photo
Robert Southwell photo
George Chapman photo
John Buchan photo

“Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

This has similarly been attributed to Buchan, but is actually a misrendering of a sentence from the first paragraph of John Bunyan, Discourse on Prayer. Bunyan's original sentence reads: "It is the opener of the heart of God, and a means by which the soul, though empty, is filled."
Misattributed

Related topics