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Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy Quotes

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Famous Leo Tolstoy Quotes

“In our age the common religious perception of men is the consciousness of the brotherhood of man - we know that the well-being of man lies in the union with his fellow men. True science should indicate the various methods of applying this consciousness to life. Art should transform this perception into feeling.”

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Book:What is Art?:
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“War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game.”

WarPlayLyingGamesAcceptingOughtTerribleHorribleThings In LifeFalsehoodCourtesyHorrible Things
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (Illustrated)
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“The question was a fashionable one, whether a definite line exists between psychological and physiological phenomena in human activity; and if so, where it lies?”

IfsHumansLyingLinesActivityPsychologicalDefiniteFashionableHuman ActivityPhysiological
Book:The Complete Novels of Leo Tolstoy in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Resurrection, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, The Cossacks, The Death of Ivan Ilyich... (Including Biographies of the Author)
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“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

IfsKnowsMenProblemTruthScienceLyingAcceptingTaughtTruth IsArgumentIncludingSimplicityObviousResistanceConclusionEaseComplexityThreadSkepticismFabricColleaguesSimplestExplainingDelightedWovenPhilosophy Of ScienceScientific TruthFalsityQuestioning BeliefsAccepting The TruthI Know The Truth
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“But it seems to me that a man cannot and ought not to say that he loves, he said. Why not? I asked. Because it will always be a lie. As though it were a strange sort of discovery that someone is in love! Just as if, as soon as he said that, something went snap-bang - he loves. Just as if, when he utters that word, something extraordinary is bound to happen, with signs and portents, and all the cannons firing at once. It seems to me, he went on, that people who solemnly utter those words, 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or what's still worse, deceive others.”

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Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“Morning or night, Friday or Sunday, made no difference, everything was the same: the gnawing, excruciating, incessant pain; that awareness of life irrevocably passing but not yet gone; that dreadful, loathsome death, the only reality, relentlessly closing in on him; and that same endless lie. What did days, weeks, or hours matter?”

MadeMatterRealityPainLyingNightHoursDifferencesMorningGoneWeekAwarenessEndlessPassingPassingsSundayFridayClosingIncessantAwareness Of Life
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“These prin­ciples laid down as in variable rules: that one must pay a card sharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat any one, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up.”

MenNeedsGivingHeartMayLongLyingFeltPayPrinciplesHusbandCardsCertaintyInsultReasonableCheatPardonVariablesTailorsHeads UpNever Cheat
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.”

PeopleThinkingMenMayWholeCareLyingDealsTroubleConditionsWoodsHandleTreatedIronBeesBricksIntercourseWithout Love
Book:The Resurrection: Tolstoy's Collections
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“We are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?”

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Book:ANNA KARENINA – Two Unabridged Translations in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): The Greatest Romantic Tragedy of All Times from the Renowned Author of War and Peace & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including Biographies of the Author)
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“He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love.”

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Book:The Works of Leo Tolstoy ...: Anna Karénina, tr. by Louise and Aylmer Maude
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“What is bad? What is good? What should one love, what hate? Why live, and what am I? What is lie,what is death? What power rules over everything?" he asked himself. And there was no answer to any of these questions except one, which was not logical and was not at all an answer to these questions. This answer was: "You will die--and everything will end. You will die and learn everything--or stop asking.”

ShouldEndsLyingHateDiesAnswersAskingLogicalOne Love
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“The essence of any religion lies solely in the answer to the question: why do I exist, and what is my relationship to the infinite universe that surrounds me? It is impossible for there to be a person with no religion (i.e. without any kind of relationship to the world) as it is for there to be a person without a heart. He may not know that he has a religion, just as a person may not know that he has a heart, but it is no more possible for a person to exist without a religion than without a heart.”

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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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