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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life.”

LifeWorkSimpleLaborSimplicityMeaningful Life
Book:ANNA KARENINA
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“He felt that if they had both not kept up appearances, but had spoken, as it is called, from the heart—that is to say, had said only just what they were thinking and feeling—they would simply have looked into each other's faces, and Konstantin could only have said, "You're dying, you're dying!" and Nikolay could only have answered, "I know I'm dying, but I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" And they could have said nothing more, if they had said only what was in their hearts. But life like that was impossible, and so Konstantin tried to do what he had been trying to do all his life, and never could learn to do, though, as far as he could observe, many people knew so well how to do it, and without it there was no living at all. He tried to say what he was not thinking, but he felt continually that it had a ring of falsehood, that his brother detected him in it, and was exasperated at it.”

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Book:ANNA KARENINA
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“No matter how convincing and irrefutable I felt my train of thoughts to be, as well as that otherwise ideas that has led us all to the conclusion that life is meaningless I still had some obscure doubts as to the validity of the final outcome of my deliberations. It was expressed as follows: I, that is my reason, have acknowledged that life is a rational. If there is nothing higher than reason (and there is not, and nothing can prove that there is), then reason is the creator of life for me. Without reason I can have no life. How then can reason to deny life when it is the creator of it? Or looking at it another way: if there were no life my reason would not exist, which must mean that reason is the offspring of life. Life is everything. Reason is the fruit of life and yet this reason rejects life itself. I felt that something was not quite right here. Life is a senseless evil, that is certain, I said to myself. Yet I have lived and still live, and so to humanity has lived and still lives. How can this be? Why do men live when it is possible not to live?”

LifePhilosophyEvilSuicideExistentialism Meaning In Life
Book:A Confession and Other Religious Writings
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“Imagine and executioner who has spent all his life torturing people and chopping off heads, or a hopeless drunkard, or a madman who has spent his entire life in a dark room which he detests but imagines that he would die if he left it—imagine if they should ask themselves, 'What is life?' Obviously the only answer they could come up with is that life is the greatest of evils. The madman's answer would be obviously correct, but only with respect to himself. Suppose I am such a madman? Suppose all of us who are wealthy and learned are such madmen?”

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Book:A Confession
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“No, I'd better not speak of it. It's a secret for me alone, of vital importance for me, and not to be put into words. This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and enlightened all of a sudden as I dreamed. Just like the feeling for my child, there was no surprise in this either. Faith—or not faith—I don't know what it is—but this feeling has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken firm root in my soul. I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly. There will be still the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife. I shall still go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it. I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying. But my life now—my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me—every minute of it—is no more meaningless as it was before, but has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.”

LifeHappinessReligionFaithSpiritualityPsychologyGoodnessEnlightenmentLogicMeaning Of Life
Book:ANNA KARENINA
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“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?”

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Book:Семейное счастие
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“Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.”

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Book:The Emperor's Three Questions
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“I looked more widely around me. I looked at the lives of the multitudes who have lived in the past and who live today. And of those who understood the meaning of life I saw not two, or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands and millions. And all of them, endlessly varied in their customs, minds, educations and positions, and in complete contrast to my ignorance, knew the meaning of life and death, endured suffering and hardship, lived and died and saw this not as vanity but good.”

LifeDeathSufferingFaithMeaningHardship
Book:A Confession
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“Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. ‘Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same—only to save oneself from it as best one can,’ thought Pierre. ‘Only not to see it, that dreadful it!”

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Book:War and Peace
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“To destroy the life that dwells in others is beyond your power. The life of those you have slain has vanished from your eyes, but is not destroyed. You thought to lengthen your own life and to shorten theirs, but you cannot do this. Life knows neither time nor space. The life of a moment, and the life of a thousand years: your life and the life of all the visible and invisible beings in the world, are equal. To destroy life, or to alter it, is impossible; for life is the one thing that exists. All else, but seems to us to be.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”

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Book:War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman
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“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”

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Book:War and Peace: plus free audiobook
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