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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“Davoût looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers. At first glance, when Davoût had only raised his head from the paper where human affairs were indicated by numbers, Pierre was merely a circumstance and Davoût could have shot him without burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a human being.”

HumanityEvilThe Other
Book:War and Peace
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“The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I think that 1 cannot know it; so 1 do not try to know it and I talk about chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of genius. To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a special enclosure where there are oats—-that this very ram, swelling with fat, is killed for meat. But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken, and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the ram did not happen accidentally.”

GodHumanityChanceKnowledgePerspectiveGeniusLuckSheepSovereigntyOmniscience
Book:War and Peace
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“There can be only one permanent revolution - a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWorldFeelsHumanityMoralKnow HowRevolutionEvery ManPermanentOur WorldNobody KnowsRegeneration
Book:Pamphlets. Translated from the Russian
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“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.”

WayMeanDoeAgeUsedHumanityIndividualUnderstandingGrowthGoes OnDevelopmentPeriodsActivityDirectGuidanceExcitementReasonableCorresponding
Book:The Spiritual Works of Leo Tolstoy: A Confession, The Kingdom of God is Within You, What I Believe, Christianity and Patriotism, Reason and Religion, The Gospel in Brief and more: Lessons on What it Means to be a True Christian From the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of War and Peace & Anna Karenina (Including Letter to a Kind YouthandCorrespondences with Gandhi)
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“When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of 'greatness.' 'Greatness,' it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the 'great' man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a 'great' man can be blamed.”

MenSeemsActionHumanityImpossibleGreatnessProduceStandardsHistoricalContrarySavingGreat MenConceptionHistorianThreadAtrocities
Book:War and Peace
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“In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art.”

KindMeanArtFeelingsPurposeHumanityBeliefEvolutionNeededReplacedUnnecessaryMistakenKinderPurpose Of Art
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“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.”

IfsMenHumanityAnimalFoodHealthHealthyKillingSakeMeatPetCulinaryVegetarianVeganAppetiteAnimal RightsVegetarianismVeganismAnimal LoveVegetarian HealthPet AnimalsAnimal LifeFunny FoodAnimal CompassionVegan DietEating AnimalsEating MeatVegan HealthVegetarian DietInspirational AnimalMeat EatingVegetarian FoodRed MeatVegan FoodAnimal FoodKilling AnimalsMeat ConsumptionAppetite For LifeRaw Meat
Book:The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï
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“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.”

MenRealityHumanityLiteratureUniversalAimInstrumentsHistoricalUnconsciousHistoricAttainment
Book:WAR AND PEACE Complete Edition – All 15 Books in One Volume (World Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the Greatest Russian Novelists and Author of Anna Karenina & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including the Biography & Memoirs of the Author)
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“If a man, before he passed from one stage to another, could know his future life in full detail, he would have nothing to live for. It is the same with the life of humanity. If it had a programme of the life which awaited it before entering a new stage, it would be the surest sign that it was not living, nor advancing, but simply rotating in the same place.”

IfsKnowsMenWould BeHumanityStageDetailsEnteringAdvancingProgrammesFuture LifeRotating
Book:The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
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“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, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”

MenWellsMeanArtIdeasFeelingsTogetherHumanityGamesIndividualEnergyPleasureEmotionProgressObjectsExpressionArt IsUnionsProductionsMysteriousWell BeingManifestationExcessIndispensableJoining
Book:Last Steps: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy
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“I looked more widely around me, I studied the lives of the masses of humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions, had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live and to die. All these people were well acquainted with the meaning of life and death, quietly labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw in all this, not a vain, but a good thing.”

PeopleLifeWellsTwoAbleSufferingHumanityDiesThreeMillionsCourageSawsTenMassUnderstoodDiedGood ThingsVainMeaning Of LifeLife And Death
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The wrongfulness, the immorality of eating animal food has been recognized by all mankind during all the conscious life of humanity. Why, then have people generally not come to acknowledge this law? The answer is that the moral progress of humanity is always slow; but that the sign of true, not casual Progress, is in uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration. And one cannot doubt that vegetarianism has been progressing in this manner”

PeopleHas BeensLawHumanityAnswersAnimalMoralDoubtProgressMankindEatingConsciousAcknowledgeVeganCasualVegetarianismImmoralityEating AnimalsAccelerationAnimal Food
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Understand then all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the well-being of humanity is only a lie, a more or less unconscious hypocrisy, camouflaging the lowest passions we posses.”

WantWellsStatesGovernmentYoungLyingHumanityPassionViolenceCriminalsWell BeingHypocrisyUnconsciousImaginarySuperstitionsLowestVulgarAnarchistPosse
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Just imagine that the purpose of life is happinesss only- then life becomes a cruel and senseless thing.You have to embrace what the wisdom of humanity,your intellect and your heart tell you: that the meaning of life is to serve the force that sent you into the world.Then life becomes a joy”

WorldHeartLife IsJoyPurposeHumanityForceImagineEmbraceIntellectMeaning Of LifePurpose Of LifeImagine That
Book:A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se
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