Entries from Come Sit a While that draw on the words of Leo Tolstoy.
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) is widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. Born into Russian nobility on his family’s estate south of Moscow, he inherited land, serfs, and a privileged life — and spent the rest of his years dismantling every comfort that privilege provided, searching restlessly for what was true. He fought in the Crimean War. He gambled away fortunes. He wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina — two of the most sweeping portraits of human life ever put on paper. And then, in middle age, he underwent a crisis so profound it nearly destroyed him: he could not find a reason to keep living. What pulled him back was not philosophy or fame. It was faith — a simple, peasant faith he watched the people around him carry with a peace he desperately wanted. He spent the last thirty years of his life writing about how to live, how to love, and how to endure. He died in a railroad stationmaster’s cottage at eighty-two, having walked away from his estate in the middle of winter, still searching. He was not a peaceful man. But he was a patient one.
Entries featuring Leo Tolstoy
- The Two Great Warriors (2026-02-05)
Drawn from 1 entries · refreshed July 24, 2026