Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotations

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"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
by Leo Tolstoy
"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back."
by Leo Tolstoy
"A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction."
by Leo Tolstoy
"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
by Leo Tolstoy
"All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do."
by Leo Tolstoy
"An agile but unintelligent and abnormal German, possessed of the mania of grandeur"
by Leo Tolstoy
"And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Before we can study the central issues of life today, we must destroy the prejudices and fallacies born of previous centuries"
by Leo Tolstoy
"Conceit is incompatible with understanding."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Crude, immoral, vulgar and senseless."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Happy families are all alike every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
by Leo Tolstoy
"He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them."
by Leo Tolstoy
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conlusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleages, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
by Leo Tolstoy
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
by Leo Tolstoy
"If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Music is the shorthand of emotion."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal."
by Leo Tolstoy
"One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of ones flesh in the ink-pot each time one dips one's pen."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy."
by Leo Tolstoy
"She had wit, she had grace, she had beauty; But above all, she had truth."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The teaching of the church, theoretically astute, is a lie in practice and a compound of vulgar superstitions and sorcery"
by Leo Tolstoy
"The time is fast approaching when to call a man a patriot will be the deepest insult you can offer him. Patriotism now means advocating plunder in the interest of the privileged classes of the particular State system into which we have happened to be born."
by Leo Tolstoy
"There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth."
by Leo Tolstoy
"True life is lived when tiny changes occur."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."
by Leo Tolstoy
"War on the other hand is such a terrible thing, that no man, especially a Christian man, has the right to assume the responsibility of starting it."
by Leo Tolstoy
"What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility."
by Leo Tolstoy
"'If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.'"
by Leo Tolstoy
"'Thou shalt not kill' does not apply to murder of one's own kind only, but to all living beings; and this Commandment was inscribed in the human breast long before it was proclaimed from Sinai. It's clear that our Creator doesn't condone cruelty to animals in any way. 'Thou shalt not kill' could have been written 'Thou shalt not kill thy fellow man.' Instead, it was all inclusive, highlighting the sanctity of life no matter what the species."
by Leo Tolstoy
"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
by Leo Tolstoy
"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."
by Leo Tolstoy
"If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because ...its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling -- killing."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Man by violating his own feelings becomes cruel. And how deeply seated in the human heart is the injunction not to take life."
by Leo Tolstoy
"What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty."
by Leo Tolstoy
"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. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth -- science -- which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."
by Leo Tolstoy
"To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it."
by Leo Tolstoy
"We lost because we told ourselves we lost."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Boredom: the desire for desires."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishment and its wars."
by Leo Tolstoy
"He never chooses an opinion, he just wears whatever happens to be in style."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Though it is possible to utter words only with the intention to fulfill the will of God, it is very difficult not to think about the impression which they will produce on men and not to form them accordingly. But deeds you can do quite unknown to men, only for God. And such deeds are the greatest joy that a man can experience."
by Leo Tolstoy
"In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man."
by Leo Tolstoy
"Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The best generals I have known were... stupid or absent-minded men. Not only does a good army commander not need any special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes -- love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The strongest of all warriors are these two"
by Leo Tolstoy
"There is only one time that is important -- NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time hat we have any power."
by Leo Tolstoy
"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."
by Leo Tolstoy
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all its beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth."
by Leo Tolstoy
"But the peasants—how do the peasants die?"
by Leo Tolstoy
"The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience ... not from our me..."
by Leo Tolstoy
"To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very goo..."
by Leo Tolstoy


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