Leo Tolstoy Quotes

509 Sourced Quotes

Are we not all flung into the world for no other purpose than to hate each other, and so to torture ourselves and one another?

Leo Tolstoy
Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he saw.

Leo Tolstoy
If a poor person envies a rich person, he is no better than the rich person.

Leo Tolstoy
Where is there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in his heart?

Leo Tolstoy
Martin's soul grew very very glad. He crossed himself put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the page he read: I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in. And at the bottom of the page he read: Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it unto me (Matt. xxv). And Martin understood that his dream had come true; and that the Saviour had really come to him that day, and he had welcomed him.

Leo Tolstoy
The error arises from the learned jurists deceiving themselves and others, by asserting that government is not what it really is, one set of men banded together to oppress another set of men, but, as shown by science, is the representation of the citizens in their collective capacity.

Leo Tolstoy
In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life.... Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of affective communication between people.

Leo Tolstoy
He felt that he was himself and did not wish to be anyone else. He only wished now to be better than he had been formerly

Leo Tolstoy
In order that the conditions of a life contrary to the consciousness of humanity should change and be replaced by one which is in accord with it, the outworn public opinion must be superseded by a new and living one.

Leo Tolstoy
He [Platon Karataev] did not understand, and could not grasp the significance of words taken apart from the sentence. Every word and every action of his was the expression of a force uncomprehended by him, which was his life.

Leo Tolstoy
The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.

Leo Tolstoy
When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has out-grown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity.

Leo Tolstoy
I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible.

Leo Tolstoy
So the majority of the highest classes of that age, even the popes and ecclesiastics, really believed in nothing at all. They did not believe in the Church doctrine, for they saw its insolvency; but neither could they follow Francis of Assisi, Kelchitsky, and most of the sectarians in acknowledging the moral, social teaching of Christ, for that undermined their social position. And so these people remained without any religious view of life. And, having none, they could have no standard with which to estimate what was good and what was bad art, but that of personal enjoyment.

Leo Tolstoy
In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life.

Leo Tolstoy
Smiling with pleasure, they went through their memories, not sad, old people's memories, but poetic, youthful ones, those impressions from the very distant past where dream merges with reality, and they laughed softly, rejoicing at something.

Leo Tolstoy
Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

Leo Tolstoy
And the angel said - "I have learned that every man lives not through care of himself, but by love"...

Leo Tolstoy
Wealth is a great sin in the eyes of God. Poverty is a great sin in the eyes of man.

Leo Tolstoy
I am sure that nothing has such a decisive influence upon a man's course as his personal appearance, and not so much his appearance as his belief in its attractiveness or unattractiveness.

Leo Tolstoy
Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

Leo Tolstoy
No one is satisfied with his position, but every one is satisfied with his wit

Leo Tolstoy
To say that you can love one person all your life is just like saying that one candle will continue burning as long as you live.

Leo Tolstoy
To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.

Leo Tolstoy
Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid.

Leo Tolstoy
The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens … Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere.

Leo Tolstoy
Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, [play or] a game in which one releases surplus energy,... not the production of pleasing objects, and is above all, not pleasure itself, but it is the means of union among mankind, joining them in the same feelings, and necessary for the life and progress toward the good of the individual and of humanity.

Leo Tolstoy
Truth is … one approach to the attainment of the good, but in and of itself, it is neither the good nor the beautiful … Socrates, Pascal, and others regarded knowledge of the truth with regard to purposeless objects as incongruous with the good … [by] exposing deception, truth destroys illusion, which is the principle attribute of beauty.

Leo Tolstoy
Only greatly insolent people establish a religious law which is to be taken for granted by others, which should be accepted by everyone on faith, without any discussion or doubts. Why must people do this?

Leo Tolstoy
You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love.

Leo Tolstoy