Leo Tolstoy quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Leo Tolstoy on Wise Famous Quotes.

I love everybody and pity everybody.

The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed in two ways: by a change of life or by a change of conscience.

Now that Vronsky had deceived her, she was prepared to love Levin and to hate Vronsky.

Pestsov maintained that art is one, and that it can attai its highest mainfestation only in conjunction with all kinds of art.

No, I can't argue with them; they wear impenetrable armour, while I'm naked.

Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.

He had been stricken with horror, not so much of death, as of life, without any knowledge of whence, and why, and how, and what it was

He spoke that refined French in which our grandparents not only spoke bit thought ...

Prince Hippolyte, under pretense of helping, was in everyone's way.

The most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.

When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair!

Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.

To live in the needs of the day, find forgetfulness.

Ah, how good! How nice! he said to himself, when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more.

The aim of civilization is to translate everything into enjoyment.

I often think how unfairly life's good fortune is sometimes distributed.

There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.

Man discovers truth by reason only, not by faith.

Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that however much you study it, it's always perfectly new.

In Varenka, she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble.

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

Is it possible to say what one really feels?

When you feel depressed - have a cigarette or a drink or, best of all, make love, and it will pass.

We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us.

Pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

No man is satisfied with his fortune, but every man is satisfied with his wit.

The true office of any faith is to give life a meaning which death cannot destroy.

When joy disappears, look for your mistake

Before we can study the central issues of life today, we must destroy the prejudices and fallacies born of previous centuries.

You owe forty-three thousand, Count,' said Dolokhov, and stretching himself he rose from the table. 'One does get tired sitting so long,' he added.

A man has to think of his soul before everything else.

-Why are you so sad?
- Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.

Said He, whoever exalts himself, shall be humbled, and he who is humbled shall become exalted.

While I doubted, I had hope; but now there is no hope left and all the same I doubt everything.

But I shall spare her. On the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great words of justice and mercy

He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently trying in vain to find the answer to some question.

I wrote everything into Anna Karenina, and nothing was left over.

It's bad to be unable to stand solitude.

Before any definite step can be taken in a household, there must be either complete division or loving accord between husband and wife.

I must drink lots of tea or I cannot work.

Tea unleashes the potential which slumbers in the depth of my soul.

Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won't come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.

Love them that hate you, but you can't love those you hate.

Never did Christ utter a single word attesting to a personal resurrection and a life beyond the grave.

Enough or not...it will have to do

The question how to live had hardly begun to grow a little clearer to him, when a new, insoluble question presented itself - death.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.

Olenin always took his own path and had an unconscious objection to the beaten tracks.

This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer.

I've got four sons in the army, but I'm not crying about it. It's all in God's hands: you may die in your bed, or God may spare you in battle,

Beautiful as seemed mama's face, it became more lovely when she smiled and seemed to enliven everything about her.

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

Improve your kindness by exercising your intellect, and improve your intellect by exercising your kindness and love.

God is my desire

When I doubted, there was hope; but now there is no hope and even so I doubt everything.

I assure you that I sleep anywhere, and always like a dormouse.

A desire of desires: the melancholy.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

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.

I can't think of you and myself apart. You and I are the same to me

But the peasants - how do the peasants die?

In time, things fall its places for a man who know how to wait

If every man could act as he chose, the whole of history would be a tissue of disconnected accidents.

History, that is, the unconscious, common, swarm life of mankind uses every moment of the life of kings as an instrument for its own ends

He felt he was himself and did not want to be otherwise. He only wanted to be better than he had been before.

Therein is the whole business of one's life; to seek out and save in the soul that which is perishing.

To know God and to live is the same thing. God is Life.

I only know this, that she thanks God for all her tribulations, and, above all, because her husband is dead.

Loose an hour and you cannot catch up in a year.

Every heart has its own skeletons, as the English say.

There is trouble with a wife, but it's even worse with a woman who is not a wife.

But every acquisition that is disproportionate to the labor spent on it is dishonest.

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them.

The social conditions of life can only be improved by people exercising self-restraint.

Parents now are not expected to live at all, but to exist altogether for their children.

If you're not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude, or change your job.

Our body is a machine for living.

There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent

If people tell you that
you should live your life preparing for the future, do not believe
them. Real Life is found only in the present.

If a man aspires to a righteous life, his first act of abstinence if from injury to animals.

Anything is better than lies and deceit!

With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better.

Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

He was in a full possession of facile, refined and agreeable intellect which he used to maintain his power and strengthen and increase his popularity.

You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!

When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change.

The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn't gold

An agile but unintelligent and abnormal German, possessed of the mania of grandeur.

In order not to give myself up to the desire to kill him on the spot, I felt compelled to treat him cordially.

A wife's a worry, a non-wife's even worse.

playing patience,

We must live. We must love. And we must believe that there's more to it all than our lives on this scrap of earth.

It's hard to love a woman and do anything.

Don't steal sweet rolls.

The heroine of my writings is She, whom I love with all the forces of my being, She who always was, is and will be beautiful, is Truth

A king is history's slave.

And so he who looks down at his feet will not know the truth, but he who discerns by the sun which way to go.

These stupid chignons! There's no getting at the real daughter. One simply strokes the bristles of dead women.

The kinder and more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness they can find in other people.

Religion reveals the meaning of life, and science only applies this meaning to the course of circumstances.