Top 100 Quotes About Leo Tolstoy
#1. Leo Tolstoy wrote: "One can live magnificently in this world, if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work."19
Jonathan Haidt
#2. There are as many minds as there are heads, so there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. Leo Tolstoy
Les And Leslie Parrott
#3. All books are hyggelig, but classics written by authors such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Leo Tolstoy, and Charles Dickens have a special place on the bookshelf. At the right age, your kids may also love to cuddle up with you in the hyggekrog and have you read to them. Probably not Tolstoy.
Meik Wiking
#4. Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. - Leo Tolstoy
Beth Kanter
#5. Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself."6
Richard J. Foster
#6. In 1910, eighty-two-year-old Leo Tolstoy flees from his wife and dies in a railway station of exposure.
Jon Winokur
#7. I very much enjoyed Leo Tolstoy's What is Art? I can't quote it, it's been a while, but at the end of the day, the idea is that "art that does good in the world is art, and what doesn't is not. It's propaganda or something else. It's bad."
Scott Avett
#8. Every drama requires a cast. The cast may be so huge, as in Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina,' that the author or editor provides a list of characters to keep them straight. Or it may be an intimate cast of two.
Nancy Kress
#9. Art is bad when 'you see the intent and get put off.' (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself.
from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Joel Carmichael
#10. Any man's greatness is a tribute to the nobility of all mankind, so when we celebrate the genius of [Leo] Tolstoy, we say, "Look! One of our boys made it! Look what we're capable of!"
Mel Brooks
#11. Leo Tolstoy ... defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers.
Emma Goldman
#12. An artist must know the reality he is depicting in its minutest detail. In my opinion we have only one shining example of that - Count Leo Tolstoy.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#13. I get the same buzz cleaning up the yard as Leo Tolstoy did from scything hay.
Sergei Lukyanenko
#14. If you want to be happy, be" -- Leo Tolstoy
"The hard part is knowing it's easy" -- Abraham Hicks
Ina Zajac
#15. But in Old Rimrock, NJ, in 1995, when the Ivan Ilyches come trooping back to lunch at the clubhouse after their morning round of golf and started to crow, "It doesn't get any better than this," they may be a lot closer to the truth than Leo Tolstoy ever was.
Philip Roth
#16. But every line we write breathes victory and challenge, the bad temper of a conqueror, underground explosions, howls. We are a volcano. We vomit forth black smoke.
The heavens open and out comes an imposing
Pile of garbage; it looks a lot like Leo Tolstoy
Velimir Khlebnikov
#17. The test of observance of Christ's teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation. LEO TOLSTOY The
Philip Yancey
#18. Let me give you a piece of advice: Leo Tolstoy is not the only human being on this planet. Yet all I ever hear you talking about is Leo Tolstoy ...
(tr Benjamin Sher)
Leo Tolstoy
#19. Love provides the person with the purpose of his life. Intellect shows him the means to achieve that purpose. Leo Tolstoy
Robin S. Sharma
#20. Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment.
Sebastopol by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
#21. The simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him. - Leo Tolstoy, 1897
Michael Lewis
#22. Constant idleness should be included in the tortures of hell, but it is, on the contrary, considered to be one of the joys of paradise.
Leo Tolstoy
#23. Everything I know, I know because of love.
Leo Tolstoy
#24. There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent
Leo Tolstoy
#25. But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.
Leo Tolstoy
#26. As often happens between men who have chosen different pursuits, each, while in argument justifying the other's activity, despised it in the depth of his heart.
Leo Tolstoy
#27. For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.
Leo Tolstoy
#28. A monkey was carrying two handfuls of peas. One little pea dropped out. He tried to pick it up, and split twenty. He tried to pick up the twenty, and split them all. Then he lost his temper, scattered the peas in all directions and ran away
Leo Tolstoy
#29. There was in her the glow of the real diamond among glass imitations.
Leo Tolstoy
#30. So remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.
Leo Tolstoy
#31. When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor.
Leo Tolstoy
#32. How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ... All will end in death, all!
Leo Tolstoy
#33. Everyone had something disparaging to say about the unfortunate Maltyshcheva, and the conversation began crackling merrily like a kindling bonfire.
Leo Tolstoy
#34. He meditated on the the use to which he should devote that power of youth which is granted to man only once
in a lifetime: that force which gives man a power of making himself, or even as it seemed to him - of making the universe
into anything he wishes.
Leo Tolstoy
#35. But she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness.
Leo Tolstoy
#36. HISTORY IS the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single nation, appears impossible.
Leo Tolstoy
#37. But neither of them dared speak of it, and not having expressed the one thing that occupied their thoughts, whatever they said rang false.
Leo Tolstoy
#38. Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn.
Leo Tolstoy
#39. All governments are in equal measure good and evil. The best ideal is anarchy.
Leo Tolstoy
#40. It is beyond the power of the human intellect to encompass all the causes of any phenomenon. But the impulse to search into causes is inherent in man's very nature.
Leo Tolstoy
#42. Levin tried to drink a little coffee, and put a piece of roll into his mouth, but his mouth could do nothing with it. He took the piece out of his mouth, put on his overcoat and went out to walk about again.
Leo Tolstoy
#43. Well, pray if you like, only you'd do better to use your judgment.
Leo Tolstoy
#44. I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse.
Leo Tolstoy
#45. '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.
Leo Tolstoy
#46. A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.
Leo Tolstoy
#47. Were possible for a man to discover a mode of existence in which he could feel that, though idle, he was of use to the world and fulfilling his duty,
Leo Tolstoy
#48. There was not a single cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material blessings of life.
Leo Tolstoy
#49. The life of our class, of the wealthy and the learned, was not only repulsive to me but had lost all meaning. The sum of our action and thinking, of our science and art, all of it struck me as the overindulgences of a spoiled child.
Leo Tolstoy
#50. In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
Read more at
Leo Tolstoy
#51. If he had a reason for preferring Liberalism to the Conservatism of many in his set, it was not that he considered Liberalism more reasonable, but because it suited his manner of life better.
Leo Tolstoy
#52. 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
#53. If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars, he said.
Leo Tolstoy
#54. The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.
Leo Tolstoy
#55. There are two Gods, there is the God that people generally believe in - a God who has to serve them. This God does not exist. But the God whom people forget - the God whom we all have to serve - exists, and is the prime cause of our existence and of all that we perceive.
Leo Tolstoy
#56. The magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed, she is so kind hearted that she can't look at the blood, but enjoys serving the calf up with sauce
Leo Tolstoy
#57. Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Leo Tolstoy
#58. There had been in his past, as in every man's, actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory of these evil actions was far from causing him so much suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences.
Leo Tolstoy
#59. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true. Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He
Leo Tolstoy
#60. Till now I have always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who imagine that their children have no secrets from them.
Leo Tolstoy
#61. People involve themselves in countless activities which they consider to be important, but they forget about one activity which is more important and necessary than any other, and which includes all other things: the improvement of their soul
Leo Tolstoy
#62. There are two aspects," Alexey Alexandrovitch resumed: "those who take part and those who look on; and love for such spectacles is an unmistakable proof of a low degree of development in the spectator, I admit, but ...
Leo Tolstoy
#63. Ah, don't grieve, little falcon,' he said with that tenderly melodious gentleness with which old Russian women speak. 'Don't grieve, little friend: you suffer an hour, you live an age! So it is, my dear. And we live here, thank God, with no offense. There's bad people, and there's good
Leo Tolstoy
#64. Violence produces only something resembling justice, but it distances people from the possibility of living justly, without violence.
Leo Tolstoy
#65. How simple and natural were her words, and how likely that she was simply sleepy! She felt herself clad in an impenetrable armor of falsehood. She felt that some unseen force had come to her aid and was supporting her.
Leo Tolstoy
#66. She began to wish he would die; yet she did not want him to die because then his salary would cease. And this irritated her against him still more. She considered herself dreadfully unhappy just because not even his death could save her,
Leo Tolstoy
#67. Send anyone who preaches war to a special frontline legion -into the assault, into the attack, ahead of everyone.
Leo Tolstoy
#69. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons. Even
Leo Tolstoy
#71. All government, without exception, conceal from the people everything that might further their emancipation, and encourage all that degrades and demoralizes them: all manner of amusements of the senses, even physical means of stupefaction, such as tabacco and alcohol.
Leo Tolstoy
#72. Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved me; you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are hateful to me, disgusting, a stranger - yes, a complete stranger! With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible to herself - stranger.
Leo Tolstoy
#73. Energy rests upon love; and come as it will, there's no forcing it.
Leo Tolstoy
#74. After the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth
Leo Tolstoy
#75. There is, and can be, no cause of a historical event except the one cause of all causes. But
Leo Tolstoy
#76. Moreover, during his wife's confinement, something had happened that seemed extraordinary to him. He, an unbeliever, had fallen into praying, and at the moment he prayed, he believed. But that moment had passed, and he could not make his state of mind at that moment fit into the rest of his life.
Leo Tolstoy
#77. It was in the hands of two ministers, one lady, and two Jews, and all these people, though the way had been paved already with them, Stepan Arkadyevitch had to see in Petersburg.
Leo Tolstoy
#78. Conversation sprang up as to the elegance and realism of her acting -- the sort of conversation that is always repeated and is always the same. In the midst of the conversation Fedor Petrovich glanced at Ivan Ilych and became silent. The others also looked at him and grew silent. Ivan
Leo Tolstoy
#79. Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.
Leo Tolstoy
#80. A man has to think of his soul before everything else.
Leo Tolstoy
#81. People understand the meaning of eating lies in the nourishment of the body only when they cease to consider that the object of that activity is pleasure ... People understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of that activity is beauty, i.e., pleasure.
Leo Tolstoy
#82. Where there has been true science, art has always been its exponent.
Leo Tolstoy
#83. That which constitutes the cause of the economic poverty of our age is what the English call over-production (which means that a mass of things are made which are of no use to anybody, and with which nothing can be done).
Leo Tolstoy
#84. [T]he social relationship of young women to young men ... now seemed to Kitty like ignominious exposure of merchandise to be taken by the highest bidder.
Leo Tolstoy
#85. Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky's greatest friend in the regiment.
Leo Tolstoy
#86. The only purpose of education is freedom; the only method is experience.
Leo Tolstoy
#87. Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?
Leo Tolstoy
#88. Woman is deprived of rights from lack of education, and the lack of education results from the absence of rights. We must not forget that the subjection of women is so complete, and dates from such ages back that we are often unwilling to recognise the gulf that separates them from us.
Leo Tolstoy
#89. Christianity in its true sense puts an end to the State. It was so understood from its very beginning, and for that Christ was crucified.
Leo Tolstoy
#90. It's different for you and me. You study, you become enlightened; I study, I become confused.
Leo Tolstoy
#91. He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death.
In place of death there was light.
Leo Tolstoy
#92. Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.
Leo Tolstoy
#93. He had lived (without being aware of it) on those spiritual truths that he had sucked in with his mother's milk, but he had thought, not merely without recognition of these truths, but studiously ignoring them.
Leo Tolstoy
#94. Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is strained to such a degree that it will certainly break, said Pierre (as those wha examine the actions of any government have always said since governments began).
Leo Tolstoy
#95. 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
#96. Humanity unceasingly strives forward from a lower, more partial and obscure understanding of life to one more general and more lucid.
Leo Tolstoy
#97. We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us.
Leo Tolstoy
#98. He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it
Leo Tolstoy
#99. Why does man have reason if he can only be influenced by violence?
Leo Tolstoy
#100. All we can know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.
Leo Tolstoy
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