Leo Tolstoy Quotes

509 Sourced Quotes

William Lloyd Garrison took part in a discussion on the means of suppressing war in the Society for the Establishment of Peace among Men, which existed in 1838 in America. He came to the conclusion that the establishment of universal peace can only be founded on the open profession of the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence (Matt. v. 39), in its full significance, as understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison happened to be on friendly relations. Having come to this conclusion, Garrison thereupon composed and laid before the society a declaration, which was signed at the time — in 1838 — by many members.

Leo Tolstoy
But that what was for him the greatest and most cruel injustice appeared to others a quite ordinary occurrence.

Leo Tolstoy
Some mathematician, I believe, has said that true pleasure lies not in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it.

Leo Tolstoy
At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.

Leo Tolstoy
Man survives earthquakes, epidemics, the horrors of disease, and all the agonies of the soul, but for all time his most tormenting tragedy has been, is, and will be—the tragedy of the bedroom.

Leo Tolstoy
Knowledge is real knowledge only when it is acquired by the efforts of your intellect, not by memory

Leo Tolstoy
He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women.

Leo Tolstoy
Once we're thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it's only here that the new and the good begins.

Leo Tolstoy
What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is like what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to adolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses what had hitherto guided his life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard suitable to his age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares, distractions, and stupefactions to divert his attention from the misery and senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time.

Leo Tolstoy
As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in violence — as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual.

Leo Tolstoy
Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their works — with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond (published in 1827) — showed me not only that the impossibility of reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the churches, could have been maintained in spite of it.

Leo Tolstoy
Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.

Leo Tolstoy
Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

Leo Tolstoy
And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.

Leo Tolstoy
History, that is to say, the unconscious, universal life of humanity, in the aggregate, every moment profits by the life of kings for itself, as an instrument for the accomplishment of its own ends.

Leo Tolstoy
There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that, whatever the outcome, there will always be people to say: 'I said then that it would be so'

Leo Tolstoy
My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.

Leo Tolstoy
Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.

Leo Tolstoy
Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Leo Tolstoy
Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.

Leo Tolstoy
Science may fall back on its stupid excuse that science works for science, and that when it has been developed by the scientists it will become accessible to the people also; but art, if it be art, should be accessible to all, and particularly to those for whom it is produced. And the position of our art strikingly arraigns the producers of art for not wishing, not knowing how, and being unable, to serve the people.

Leo Tolstoy
Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

Leo Tolstoy
Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.

Leo Tolstoy
The positivist philosophy of Comte and the I doctrine deduced from it that humanity is an organism, and Darwin's doctrine of a law of the struggle for existence that is supposed to govern life, with the differentiation of various breeds of people which follows from it, and the anthropology, biology, and sociology of which people are now so fond-all have the same aim. These have all become favourite sciences because they serve to justify the way in which people free themselves from the human obligation to labour, while consuming the fruits of other people's labour.

Leo Tolstoy
In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.

Leo Tolstoy
And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death — but it's more peaceful.

Leo Tolstoy
If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and you want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only ONE thing: you can become better yourself.

Leo Tolstoy
Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it." - Vronksy {Anna Karenina}

Leo Tolstoy
Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false.
If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered — upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free — the truth and its expression!

Leo Tolstoy
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

Leo Tolstoy